Page 9 of Zero Happily Ever Afters (Branches of Past and Future #4)

After Chanelle’s announcement, the big screen projectors above lit up and displayed every single student with their newly updated ranking for their second year second semester. The final ranking they’d carry to impress potential guilds for internships.

Cameras soared across the auxiliary gym, catching frazzled reactions to students surprised by their changed ranking. Some remained where they were last semester, a few moved up, but it was those who’d dropped that hesitated the longest. Microphones attached to the cameras caught the mutterings of students who quickly strategized.

With so many cameras moving around, they managed to keep every student in their sights, projecting an image of them on the borders of the massive screens above. The bulk of the screen would rotate on which students or scenes of combat to display, but when the game was over, every teacher would receive a copy of the full footage. We’d take that footage and have the students analyze it, pull out pieces of their own combat, and turn the event into a skills-based project presentation for homeroom.

When the timer ticked, everyone sprang into action, banishing wisps and collecting points. It turned into a frenzy almost immediately as students cast magic and collided with each other in a fight for points. Their Cast-8-Watches synced to the tech that tracked everything. Their rankings were projected on the screens next to their image with a second matching number that sat beside their ranking indicating their current score. Once the competition began those numbers erupted as students banished wisps or knocked fellow competitors out of bounds and into the lava pit.

Several students among the top ten—including a few of my own—immediately targeted the lowest-ranked students who started with 500 or more points. They were the easiest targets, which seemed cruel, but the glint in Chanelle’s eye drew my attention. She’d proposed this and silently observed the scouts who watched these low-ranked witches scramble to survive against the best of the best at Gemini Academy. Sure, they lost, but a few put up a good fight and drew the interest of a curious scout in the audience. Scouts who would’ve never looked twice at a student ranked so lowly. They were forced to, though, as they studied the best of the best tear apart competition to collect points.

My homeroom split apart into three four-person teams, sticking with their coven mates only similarly to most everyone else in the competition. They all wanted to impress the scouts in the audience, hit the top ten individually or as a team.

Following the cameras that displayed students on the big screen, rotating through multiple shots at once, I watched my students’ performance. I needed to compile notes on how they handled themselves during this event, keep track of which scouts showed an interest in my students, and figure out what fine-tuning I needed to prioritize for my homeroom kids before the semester ended and they moved on to the industry as interns.

Jennifer leapt ahead of her coven mates, seeking out targets in the form of students versus wisps. While Caleb calculated the competition rules, weighing the pros and cons of striking down peers, Jennifer grasped the objective immediately.

Once Jennifer reached two classmates, she channeled telekinesis into her palms and slammed all the psychic energy she could into this interwoven strike. The expansion of my branch gave me insight into the colorful aura of emotions she struck.

Not only did she knock the breath from their chests, but a white blob of energy circulating from Jennifer’s aura devoured all the crimson confidence circulating from those she targeted, leaving them distraught and consumed by self-doubt. They stared at Jennifer, horrified due to their magnified emotional reactions, and in their surface thoughts, they truly believed her to be a monster. Jennifer’s heavy black, scarlet, and purple makeup painted over her eyes and lips certainly fed into their fears as it gave her ghostly complexion a ghoulish appearance.

I chuckled, burying the pity I had for those students. It was a cruel, calculated tactic that proved just how impressive empathy could be when redirected into an offensive attack.

“Carter, if you don’t get off the damn sidelines and—”

“Yeah, yeah, Emo Queen.” Carter hadn’t hesitated to strategize like Caleb. No, he’d looped his healing magics around each of his coven mates before entering the fray of chaos.

Flying from above, Carter swept past Jennifer and redistributed his roots into a precise strike of telekinesis to knock away the distraught pair that Jennifer had already immobilized.

As they crashed into the lava, their hopes were dashed, but their injuries remained mild since Carter had weaved a bit of his branch to lessen the pain of their impact.

He didn’t care for Jennifer’s approach of emotionally devastating anyone in their way, but he also refused to lose because of his own self-doubts. Anxiety quickly consumed by Jennifer and released back into the air for others to breathe in. Christ. She’d seriously mastered the emotional wavelengths of her peers well enough to literally weaponize their fucking feelings.

Wisps bounced against a blue barrier, blocking them from floating away. Carter and Jennifer eyed those around them, confused about whose branch this might be and how it benefited them.

“If you two want to actually earn some points, you got about ten seconds before that spell fades.” Katherine held her open grimoire in one hand while extending her other arm toward her coven mates and casting a powerful banishment strike that took out a cluster of wisps, ensuring she maintained the highest score on her team.

Since Katherine held such a high ranking, she had a lot of catching up to do to keep up with the point system in place. That didn’t deter her or any of my students, each lashing out at competitors with masterful offensively combative techniques.

Tactically speaking, I’d screwed up with Katherine’s coven. Each member had a support-style branch magic. Normally, I flipped student groupings around each semester so that by their final year at the academy, they’d grown used to working with others and had a well-balanced team of strategy, defense, offense, and support. However, after the warlock incursion their first semester, the way they bonded, the way they fought for their lives, for my life—I struggled breaking up their teams, rotating their partnerships.

That failure on my part didn’t matter because my homeroom coven had done what they’d always done. They compensated for my faults and continued to impress me. Despite being a team best suited for support, Katherine, Jennifer, and Carter proved the versatility in their casting capabilities.

Caleb still hesitated. It wasn’t his overactive mind making plans. Well, it was in part. He’d glanced at the big screen projecting all the names, branch magics, and rankings still in play. Some had already been crossed out with red Xs since they’d fallen into the lava pit below. What caused Caleb to freeze was the overwhelming shift of information displayed above; his ranking had dropped, and seeing it projected for everyone left him rattled.

Despite all his training, studying, and mastery over his roots, hitting the rank of 100 really was the peak of his potential according to Gemini’s standards since he didn’t have a branch to calculate. And since other students below him had shown blossoming improvements in their branch magics, rankings had shifted, and he dropped by six.

Get it together, Caleb.

I bit the inside of my cheek, resisting the impulse to reach out telepathically and knock some sense into his beehive of a mind.

Despite sinking into the shock of failing before he’d started, Caleb finally pulled it together and soared through the air. His heart fluttered, anxiously beating until he’d steadied his emotions by remembering what he’d always known.

Caleb was used to being overlooked, underestimated, and dismissed. He set his mind to showcasing why these scouts needed him, why they’d want him at their guild. Following along with his coven mates, Caleb countered a few competitors who’d moved in close to strike Jennifer, then pivoted to assist Carter in tackling an opponent before finally launching himself above Katherine and catching sight of the huge cluster of wisps just out of her casting range.

Caleb clapped his hands together, using the sound to precisely extend the huge wave of banishment cast. It cleared the area of wisps almost instantly.

Not that it impressed Caleb much since this was how he practiced with his fledging permit every day outside of school, yet nothing seemed to help him access that singular use of perfected banishment he’d demonstrated during the first-year showcase. It wasn’t his fault. I should’ve focused more on studying perfected roots, searched for some information that’d help him access that skill set. Not that there was much to be found since very few witches ever perfected a root magic.

“You branchless bastard!” Kenzo shouted, flying directly toward Caleb. “Those were my damn points!”

Caleb eyed the area, noticing a bunch of students fighting against the disruption that’d knocked away their levitation roots. Most plummeted into the lava pits coated in gray static, while a few resisted, relying entirely on their telekinesis to stay afloat and desperately hoping the hex would fade before their channeling wavered.

Having cleared the area of opponents, Kenzo had planned on collecting a surplus of points that Caleb had unintentionally stolen with his widespread banishment.

Kenzo planted a foot on Caleb’s face, kicked the stunned Caleb, and used the force as propulsion. It moved both boys in a backward flip through the air as Caleb descended until he gathered his bearings and Kenzo soared high using his former friend as a literal step while propelling himself further up into the highest trenches of students competing for points. Kenzo coated his entire body in gray static before lunging into the fray and tackling several students.

He didn’t care what he hexed, so long as he disrupted magic around him and threw off his competition, which allowed him to claim another batch of points as he knocked more and more people into the lava pit.

Part of him longed to dart back down and face off against Caleb, but he’d already prepared a strategy with his coven mates to ensure they performed well today. As the other three members of his coven caught up to Kenzo, Layla and Melanie were convinced Kenzo only included them because he wanted to make sure his coven scored first place, whereas Gael believed Kenzo cared so much about each member of his team he was determined they’d all succeed.

I rolled my eyes and huffed. The reality of Kenzo’s motives lay somewhere between those opposing theories in a mixed bag of angry emotions and utter arrogance.

Kenzo’s erratic strikes of hex magic had cleared a path for his coven mates in every direction, tearing through the competition of unlucky foes. Soaring swiftly through the sky, Kenzo served as a vanguard and unleashed advanced combative techniques. He truly was the ultimate offensive tactician. So much so, the scouts studied his maneuvers, eyeing the trickling hex magic in the air meant to support his team that lagged behind. Many enchanters still had a chip on their shoulders for Kenzo’s winning speech last year, where he declared them all incompetent fools. That didn’t seem to matter, though. Some scouts weaved together ways to present Kenzo, put a spin on his cockiness, and convince their enchanters why he would make a valued intern.

Good. That’d make my job easier. Granted, every scout with an interest massively underestimated Kenzo’s attitude.

Layla maintained minimal transformation, only shifting her eyes and her claws and enhancing all her senses so that she could sniff out magic usage and take down nearby classmates who encroached on her team.

As the second most aggressive member in their team—hell, in my homeroom class—she didn’t hesitate to knock classmates out of the competition and into the lava pit if they got too close to Gael or Melanie, but it appeared sticking close to those two became her priority. Kenzo’s plan flitted on Layla’s surface thoughts along with a few choice words for how she felt about the annoying asshat she worked with.

“Layla,” Gael shouted, telekinetically redirecting some of his spiked projectiles and luring the wisps he’d missed toward Layla.

I understood.

While Layla focused on peers who posed a threat, she wasn’t gaining many points for banishing wisps. That became Gael’s main goal in the group, ensuring each member of the coven maintained similar scoring. His spikes were seeped in magic that drew the attention of wisps, and since he’d gotten better at channeling his root magics, Gael also soaked his spikes in banishment magic. Gael’s precision aim allowed him to take out a vast number of wisps from a great distance and in nearly every direction.

Layla slashed the wisps Gael drew toward her, channeling banishment into her claws almost as proficiently as Gael had with his spikes.

This strategy also allowed Gael the opportunity to avoid attacking his peers, which remained his biggest weakness in the field. Gael was definitely too nice for someone with a combative branch and build. He stood taller than nearly everyone in our homeroom and had a broad, muscular jock build.

Flames engulfed Gael, consuming all the wisps drawn toward him.

“ ?Caliente! ?Estás intentando matarme? ” Gael spun around, shaking the fire away with no effect since they only obeyed his teammate, who spent more time snickering at Gael’s flailing than she did securing their position.

“Melanie, pay attention!” Layla snarled.

“Right.” Melanie straightened her posture and returned the flames to their distant position as her tracker beeped, and the numbers shot up from the wisps she’d taken out.

The versatility of her fire made her the best long-distance member of their team, controlling her flames in a spiral serpent shape that circled her coven mates and forced nearby students to hesitate over the threat of burning up or claiming points.

Their coven worked together like a machine, each focusing on one specific function to ensure their collective force overwhelmed the competition.

“Woohoo!” Yaritza tore through the flames, fanning them with the powerful swimmer’s kick of her legs. The massive outpour of telekinesis spread the blaze and almost hid her fiery comets aimed for the cluster of nearby wisps. “Thanks for clearing the path, Mel.”

“ She’s so damn irritating. ” Melanie waved her arms, resecuring the flamed barrier meant to shield her team.

Wisps exploded into shimmery light when Yaritza’s comets struck them, revealing the banishment she’d laced throughout her branch magic, similar to how Gael used his projectile spikes.

Yaritza’s movements through the air were chaotic, but the technique held the same finesse that her coven mate Tara used when flying through levitation and telekinesis, which I took some pride in. After all, the best instruction often came from peers, and I enjoyed seeing how much my homeroom coven had grown in two years. They took the lessons I’d given them and fine-tuned their skills. They leaned on each other, offering techniques and support. They trusted each other implicitly.

Yaritza cackled, unleashing a flurry of comets in every direction. No method behind her surface thoughts aside from pure chaos meant to confuse and frighten those who’d moved in to take her out of the competition.

“Look out.” Jamius spun in circles, holding a copy of himself by the arm before flinging the duplicate toward Yaritza.

The copy tackled the incoming student, nosediving into the lava pit as Jamius summoned a barrage of copies to sweep the area clear.

His copies shielded the original from magic and knocked a few students into the lava. Most of all, he selectively distributed his roots. Each clone held either telekinesis or levitation based on how the copies paired off to work together, which left Jamius enough control to keep from faltering while he used sensory to pinpoint wisps and banish them from the area. His Cast-8-Watch glowed, beeping again and again as his points shot up.

“You two are good.” Gael hovered between Yaritza and Jamius, near a cluster of wisps the pair had lured with comets and clones. “But you can’t outshine the glory of my cock.”

“CLUCK!” The damned rooster extended his wings and flapped furiously, sending a breeze laced with banishment which gave Gael all the points.

“Ugh.” Yaritza frowned. “ The duo of dumbassary is going off script. ”

I snorted.

King Clucks remained perched between Gael’s shoulder blades, looping telekinesis to hold himself in place while keeping his human partner secured in his grip. Gael fixated on levitation and sensory, while King Clucks prioritized telekinesis and banishment.

Gael and King Clucks dominated with their flying duet, something they learned from Jamie’s lesson. Jamie still stirred in Gael’s mind, grateful for the technique and holding a tiny piece of regret for the fact he’d never made things right with Jamie.

Tara unleashed a scream laced with telekinesis that knocked back a dozen students. It ate away at their sadness in a way only a Banshee’s Wail could, which almost made the devastation of being eliminated from the competition bearable.

With so much magic at her disposal, she put it all on display. She hurled icicles fused with banishment to strike wisps. It was nice seeing so many students take our lessons on fusing branch casting with particular root magics seriously. It wouldn’t work for everyone, but this was perfect long-range precision practice for those with projectile branches.

Tara kept her other three branches held together in shadowy spheres. The overlap of her shadows, sealing, and intangibility didn’t immobilize or deter her like it had in the past. Now, Tara kept a flow of magic coursing into each of her branches and roots, ensuring those protective spheres stayed close to her coven mates, shielding them from surprise strikes.

I took deep pride in my homeroom coven, chest swelling so much I had to double-check I hadn’t triggered my levitation root. I floated on a high as scouts observed each of my students, showing an interest in reporting back to their enchanters. Their notes were furiously swift, keeping up with hundreds of competing students simultaneously, but I fixated on their comments for twelve.

“ Look at how succinctly she wields all those branches simultaneously. Breathtaking. ”

“ Almost certain the Martinez kid will end up at his parents’ guild, but he’d be perfect for Pegasus. ”

“ Simply amazing. She’s not even reading from her grimoire as she recites countless spells. ”

“ For an empath, her ruthlessness is…delightful. ”

“ His coordination with his copies is masterful. ”

“ The precision with each flick of the flames—quite impressive. ”

“ A cosmic magic like that is definitely something that’d intrigue audiences. ”

“ He’s the one who manipulated his vitality to save his teacher. ”

“ That hex branch is flawless. No wonder he held his own against warlocks. ”

“ Not surprising from a Smythe. Her technique is even more refined than her brothers. ”

“ Not sure who has a more flawless reaction time, the kid or his rooster. ”

“ Where’s that perfected banishment, though? I really wanted to see what the kid who faced off against a devil would unleash. ”

I took notes of my own, accounting for every positive the scouts had for my homeroom students. I’d let them know, savor the happiness and pride they’d take on the compliments. But of course, I’d have to balance it out with some critiques on where they each floundered. They definitely had room to improve, and I would ensure they did.

A spike of fear drew my attention from my students.

Chanelle’s focus waned, thoughts teetering away from her meticulous observations of the scouts in attendance. Admittedly, I might’ve been skimming her surface thoughts for easy notes on the audience. I mean, these scouts would be compiling lists for their enchanters, so I needed to know who among them was even worth pursuing and who I should politely thank for an interest in an internship before rejecting them. I only wanted the best opportunities for my homeroom coven, something that tugged at Chanelle with equal ferocity—so much so that it dragged my mind toward hers as panic swept through her.

Dammit, woman. I cracked my neck, attempting to sever the easy connection we’d built over the years, but my telepathy remained glued to her mind.

“Fuck,” she muttered, nearly letting her mic catch it. Thankfully, Kenzo had sent a competitor plummeting so hard into the lava pit, all anyone caught was the rattling soundbite from nearby cameras.

Chanelle’s gaze was locked onto three of her students.

Tia signed spells to create barriers for her coven mates.

Beside her, Vik bit their lip, unsure of themself or which magic they should mimic. Their shadow cats swirled playfully in the air, silhouettes of magic at the ready to copy any spell with mastery. Mastery Vik didn’t believe they possessed at all.

They towered over Tia when standing upright, but the anxiety in their chest was so heavy that Vik hunched low, trying to hide themselves behind their coven mate. Tia was far too petite for Vik to disappear, but that was what they wanted to do. Disappear so everyone wouldn’t witness them fail again.

The last member of their coven was probably the one I knew the least about. A lanky guy with a deep amber complexion and a frazzled expression.

“Giving you all the luck in the world, try not to screw it up.” He grabbed Tia and Vik by the arm, pulsating with luminescent black light. It radiated from his palms and into his coven mates’ chests.

Tia read Emmanuel’s lips, then nodded assuredly as she used the luck he passed along to reinforce her barriers. When the luck coursed through Vik’s body, it sent a surge of confidence, allowing them to make a choice in the form of mimicking Tia’s magic. Unfortunately, Emmanuel’s legs wobbled, and he had to jump into Vik’s arms to keep from falling into the lava pit.

“So sorry,” he whined, realizing he’d sacrificed too much of his good luck and made his own fizzle out in the process.

It seemed the more luck Emmanuel provided others, the less he had himself, and vice versa. Since he could only hex others through physical contact, he couldn’t exactly pass the bad luck onto the threat of competitors that closed in on their coven.

I swallowed hard, perhaps clinging to my own guilt for Jamie Novak’s coven mates. They already struggled to properly collaborate with each other but after losing a member, they were at an extreme disadvantage in this competition.

Chanelle’s fear for her students came from the fact that Peterson’s homeroom coven swarmed around the three. All twelve stuck close together following a tactic Peterson had recommended for this game: unite as a class and dominate. It worked and they took out a few four person teams. Now, they’d found an easy target of three members who still struggled to collaborate like first-year students.

Unable to tune out the horror, I watched just like Chanelle, guilt ridden and unable to stop this tactical strategy to tear down competition.

Tia, Vik, and Emmanuel found themselves surrounded, with no defensive magic left, and bracing for the pain of being struck down into the lava pit by Peterson’s homeroom.

A spike of calculating fury drew my attention.

It turned out Peterson’s homeroom made a glaring error in assuming that Chanelle’s homeroom wasn’t collaborating. Sure, they stuck mainly to their four-person covens like everyone else, but they didn’t remain idle once Tia, Vik, and Emmanuel ended up cornered.

“Let’s fuck ‘em up,” Derrick shouted, swirling his arms to heighten the raging water he’d summoned.

“You think we’d just let you gang up on our class.” Tiffany surfed along the tidal wave, swerving the direction of each drop of water alongside her beaver partner until the pair slammed into Peterson’s entire homeroom coven.

“Eat it, bitches.” Harrison had a cocky smile, arrogant in the most awkward way from a five-foot-nothing scrawny boy blaring the hardest profanities looped into song lyrics while rifling through the fanny pack strapped to his hip. Even hovering upside down as he swung past Tiffany from another angle, it didn’t hinder his trajectory one bit as he hurled fragile glass bottles that exploded on contact with the water.

One of the scouts observed how Derrick altered the movement of the water to manipulate and strengthen its density, thus ensuring each potion shattered simultaneously.

“Blitz firework destruction. Hell yeeeeeeah!” Harrison cackled, delighting in the mayhem of carnage that swept across the tidal wave as Peterson’s homeroom scrambled to escape the frenzy of explosion enchantment magic.

They couldn’t find an exit, though. The water seemed to loop back around on itself, creating an infinite circle. Harrison’s destructive onslaught appeared endless, too. Neither was true.

Amani stood at the edge of the water’s depths, watching as students in Peterson’s homeroom plummeted to their defeat. As they fell one by one, she released her illusion over them.

Once the last student from Peterson’s homeroom fell into the lava pit, Amani snapped her fingers. Her three coven mates flew to her side, ready to continue their strategy for winning the event now that Vik, Tia, and Emmanuel were no longer being unfairly targeted. I wouldn’t call it unfair. Hell, it was a smart strategy working as an entire class to eliminate competition.

Amani turned her gaze toward the nearby cameras, ensuring the whole auditorium heard her next words. “Anyone fucks with our homeroom, and they’re dead.”

Tiffany popped a hip. “But, like, not in an actual dead kind of way.”

“Fuck that.” Harrison folded his arms and posed as tough as he could. “Six feet under, mofos.”

“You can’t say that, dumbass.” Derrick smacked Harrison on the back of the head, then pointed to the cameras presenting to everyone.

Apparently, Derrick and Harrison often butted heads with each other quite literally since becoming coven mates, but before either could break out into a familiar tussle, gray static surged along their abdomens. With their levitation roots hexed, the shock of falling left each boy too immobilized to strategize with their telekinesis as a way to prevent their plummet.

Kenzo smirked, a wicked glint in his gaze as he descended from above and closed the distance between himself and Amani. “While you were running your mouth, per usual, I took out your beta boys.”

Few held much competition for Kenzo, but Amani was among the top ten, and he believed she wasn’t utterly incompetent. Too cautious for his liking, but skilled when she wasn’t gossiping about people with his irritating teammate, Layla. He found both girls irksome, but he couldn’t very well punch Layla without hindering his chances of winning the game. Amani would have to do.

“ I could take him, ” Amani thought before her mind twisted into countless variables, ones she’d likely encounter against someone of Kenzo’s caliber, and she took the remaining time, along with her current score, into account. Most of all, the loss of Harrison and Derek left her vulnerable in comparison to other teams who still had a full coven.

With a snap of her fingers, Amani summoned more than thirty illusions of herself, Tiffany, and Duchess of Damnation.

Amani’s glamour magic was fascinating in the sense that she didn’t alter the perception of what an individual saw or experienced but more like she draped her magic in an area, manipulating the psychic plane and making it hers. Anyone who looked at her glamour was affected; even those well out of her range scattered throughout the auxiliary gym fell victim to the phony duplications Amani conjured. As an experienced psychic, I could see through her illusions, but it wasn’t easy given her expertise.

The girls bolted to the other side of the auxiliary gym while a relentless Kenzo tore through the illusions one electrical strike of disruption at a time. Amani wanted to impress the scouts, which she couldn’t do in a long, dragged-out battle against Kenzo. She accurately surmised that sometimes the most impressive strategy came in the form of knowing when to fall back.

By the time Kenzo had cleared a path forward, he’d already found a new quarry to hunt.

Sheesh. I grimaced. He really did treat this event like he was an apex predator slaughtering defenseless prey.

Seeing as they were both separated from their teammates, Kenzo raced toward his next opponent.

I flinched when his fist collided with an unsuspecting Caleb, who spun through the air in pain and shock and confusion. It took precious seconds to compose himself and determine where the attack came from. Kenzo allowed Caleb those seconds. With each tick of the clock, he strategized weaknesses of Caleb’s he could exploit. The blitz attack wasn’t meant to defeat Caleb or offer Kenzo an edge. It was, in the most sincerely absurd manner, Kenzo’s way of saying hello, greeting someone he deemed worthy of eviscerating.

“Well, branchless.” Kenzo coiled gray static over his arms, channeling it across his entire body. “Show me what you got. I wanna see those roots in action.”

Kenzo could’ve struck Caleb with hex magic during his surprise strike. He could’ve projected it at a distance now. Two things Caleb surmised. He couldn’t fathom why Kenzo held back, though, why he hadn’t used the opportunity to knock Caleb out of bounds and into the lava pit below. The only thing that came to mind was that Kenzo still found him unworthy. Unworthy of attending Gemini, unworthy of joining the guild industry, and unworthy of being Kenzo’s friend.

“You still think I don’t deserve to be here?” Caleb ground his teeth, channeling a ferocious amount of telekinesis that knocked encroaching competitors away.

When the waves of energy reached Kenzo, his disruption shattered the pulse and fanned it in opposing directions.

“If I didn’t think you belonged here, Branchless Blunder, I wouldn’t be here to fuck you up personally.” Kenzo smirked, gloating confidence radiated so brightly it hid the natural shades of fury that painted his aura. “I’m about to pound you into the ground, so consider this my way—”

“Hello, phrasing!” Gael shouted from nearby. “I might’ve gone with pummeled, but that’s just me.”

Caleb flew toward Kenzo, channeling concentrated telekinesis into his fists. “You won’t be the one doing the pounding here.”

“Am I the only one who hears it?” Gael hovered sideways, mind lost in perverse musings. “Get a room, you two. And make sure your partners are cool with it. Or better yet, in on it. Foursome fun, yum.”

Kenzo hurled a bolt of hexed electricity at Gael, which he only evaded thanks to his clucking rooster, who kicked his human partner in the head and out of the path before dragging Gael away and back to their coven.

As much as Gael irritated the ever-living fuck out of Kenzo, he silently thanked the irksome boy for his awful timing. Kenzo tasted a bitter compliment lodged in his throat, mixed with memories and sentiment and a craving to bury their past. He didn’t want to release his anger for Caleb, though. Not yet. He wanted to hold onto it, hold onto something between the two, as he believed they had nothing but Kenzo’s rage connecting them anymore.

So Kenzo, being the dramatic, angry brat that he was, decided he’d use what remained of the competition time to beat Caleb to a bloody pulp as his way of acknowledging the branchless kid who he tried to cut out of his heart did, in fact, belong at Gemini Academy. Kenzo didn’t know any other way to express how he saw Caleb as a worthy rival in the industry.

I did my best to pull my attention and telepathy from them, but unfortunately, the cameras and my magic remained locked on the conflict.

The instant their fists collided, they landed a solid hit on each other’s jaw—enough to draw blood, enough to bruise, and almost enough to create a crack of bones. But the crackle came from the collision of their telekinesis.

It rippled in waves from the sheer force of their strikes, yet neither fell back. Instead, they redistributed the flow of telekinesis they kept synced with their levitation root, allowing them to maintain a steady stance in the air as they kicked and punched at one another.

I rubbed my temples, drowning out the prying surface thoughts of other students questioning why two people from the same homeroom coven would be attacking each other. The stories about each boy painted legends and rumors in the minds of their peers, believing more than anything they must’ve been friends.

After all, they’d faced off against warlocks together, they’d survived demons, devils, criminals, life-threatening ordeals, and stood victorious in last year’s Spring Showcase side-by-side. Not to mention, they did all the same extracurriculars, spending nearly all their free time together. Surely, they were bonded, friends—much like their significant others Gael and Katherine, who connected many of these dots that others had concluded about their introverted boyfriends.

Few people knew Kenzo or the animosity he held toward Caleb. Even fewer knew Caleb or the regret he clung to because he believed he’d surrendered their friendship too easily all those years ago. Sure, everyone knew of the boys. Even the staff and scouts watched in awe of their continued combat.

Uff, speaking of … I winced at the hard kick to the chest Kenzo delivered before knocking Caleb into random bystanders.

The thing was, no one really knew either of the boys well. Kenzo’s aggressive nature kept most at bay, while few had a chance to get to know Caleb since he kept his face buried in a book at all times. All they knew was their reputation.

Caleb headbutted Kenzo with a solid, concentrated blow of telekinesis that allowed him to move in closer and lock one of his arms around Kenzo’s, so he’d have a harder time countering.

The two of them spun round and round, plummeting toward the lava pit, hearts racing, bodies locked in battle, senses distracted by observations of the other’s next move. It didn’t matter. Each boy fought with a fearlessness of consequences, believing failure couldn’t touch them. Not in this moment.

Both of them pivoted, kicking at the other and casting a wide divide between themselves and the lava that splattered chaotically against their channeled telekinesis.

Kenzo cracked his knuckles, pressing his thumbs against his fingers and popping them one at a time, releasing static with each crack.

Caleb weaved around bolts of gray lightning, dodging trace amounts of static that darted across the auxiliary gym. Disruption Kenzo had laced throughout since the competition kicked off.

Once cornered by hex magic in all directions, Caleb closed his eyes and focused on his banishment root. Doing everything possible to draw on the same emotional release Caleb had the day he accessed his perfected casting, he released magic in waves.

Caleb’s banishment cleared the wisps around them and sent the encroaching gray static curling backward on itself. Not enough to silence the magic, but Caleb stalled its pursuit of him. The technique hadn’t gone unnoticed by anyone. Not me. Not the scouts in attendance. And certainly not by Kenzo.

While he didn’t demonstrate a perfected banishment, Caleb came quite close and proved he still had access to such immense, skillful power.

It didn’t take long for the effects on Kenzo’s hex to fade, and he channeled his magic as he prepared to send forth endless bolts of disruption.

They’d each studied the other since day one of arriving at Gemini Academy, yet they’d only fought once, very briefly—because of my own stupidity of pairing them against each other—but now they’d both grown so much. This sparring between them was merely a warmup, an opportunity to gauge the strength and strategy of the other one.

Now, the true fight between them would begin.

BUZZZZZZZZ!

The timer screeched, and everyone froze.

Headmaster Dower took a deep breath, inhaling the tempered lava she’d lain about the floor of the auxiliary gym.

Chanelle cheered for everyone who’d remained afloat for the full hour.

The massive screen above whirled and whipped through names and faces as it calculated who finished among the top ten in each category.

I half-smiled, proud to see each of my homeroom students’ covens land among the top ten, especially since only about a quarter of the students had full teams at this point. Then that glimmer of joy twisted into a snarled frown when Gael’s coven name appeared on the big screen.

4th Place: Ben Dover’s Coven

The roar of laughter only fueled my fury. He still hadn’t filed to change their ridiculous team title, and that meant the scouts would be sharing that fucking coven name in their reports to interested enchanters. At least Caleb’s coven had a nice ring to it.

2nd Place: The Coven of Inevitable Potential

And to no surprise, Kenzo’s team landed at the top.

1st Place: The Roaring Rainbows of Flame and Lightning

My heart raced, waiting for the second category to finish compiling names and reveal one by one who landed among the top ten individual competitors. Pride washed over me when five of my students sat among the top ten competitors today. And honestly, I was utterly surprised to see the jester of innuendos had actually treated this event seriously.

10th Place: Gael Rios-Vega 26,969

9th Place: Tatiana Owens 27,783

8th Place: Ramsey Miller 28,802

7th Place: Katherine Harris 28,838

6th Place: Devon White 28,840

5th Place: Andrew Johnson 28,895

4th Place: Amani Williams 29,901

3rd Place: Tara Whitlock 30,102

2nd Place: Caleb Huxley 42,488

1st Place: Kenzo Ito 42,490

Two points stood between Caleb and Kenzo. They had a landslide over everyone else—with Tara only lagging so far behind because she’d ensured her coven’s scores didn’t flounder. The joy she took in her coven mates’ success soared above her ocean of sorrow. It seemed she’d shifted to a support role toward the last quarter of the competition, allowing Gael, Jamius, and Yaritza to claim all the points.

A wave of defeat hit each boy. Kenzo couldn’t fathom how Caleb had gotten so close to surpassing him. Caleb couldn’t believe he still wasn’t able to catch up to Kenzo. Both of them hated ending their fight before truly competing against each other.

The second-year showcase would offer them that opportunity. Chances were they’d both make it to the final round again, with a bigger audience and more experience under their belts. I worried what that battle would bring if they’d emerge finally recognizing each other again, but I knew the time had come.

Kenzo and Caleb needed this.