The West Wing’s defence practice room was a cavern of cold stone and echoing shadows, smelling of scorched wood and the sharp, metallic tang of ozone. Gwen had come here to escape the celebratory noise of the dorms—the shrill laughter of Inks who thought a lifted curfew meant the danger had vanished.
She wasn’t dressed for a party. She wore charcoal leggings and a matching oversized sweater that cost more than most Vapours’ entire wardrobes, her hair pulled back into a practical knot, accented by a cloth headband. She expected silence.
Instead, she found chaos.
At the far end of the salle, a pile of splintered wood and dented brass was being unceremoniously dragged away by a grumbling hobgoblin. Will stood in the centre of the floor, his face slick with sweat, his jaw set in a line of pure, frustrated agony. He was trying to cast the Aegis Bastion.
The golden light flickered around him—a fragile, stuttering cage of amber that died the moment a training dummy launched a low-level spark at him. When he tried another—shoving his magical resonance with wild vigour—it exploded. The training dummy splintered. The hobgoblin groaned.
“Sorry,” Will said, aiming a remorseful, lopsided smile at the hardworking attendant. The hobgoblin wordlessly set up another.
Gwen watched him for a long moment from the shadows. She told herself she was looking for weaknesses to exploit in next Friday’s seminar. She told herself she was just protecting school property. She certainly didn’t tell herself that seeing him look so broken made something in her chest ache.
“My Aegis Bastion is better than anything even most fourth-years can cast,” she said, her voice cutting through the damp air like a chime.
Will spun around, his rowan branch up and sparking. When he saw her, his shoulders slumped, though his expression sharpened into a defensive scowl. “You’re in the wrong place, Princess,” he panted, wiping sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “All the effortlessly talented Inks are out celebrating the fact that they can get drunk after sunset again.”
“Do I look like I’m dressed for a party?” she asked, stepping into the light.
Will’s gaze drifted over her—from her silk-soft lounge set to the bare, pale skin of her ankles. He looked confused, his green eyes searching hers. To a boy raised on flannel and denim, her workout wear probably looked like a ballgown.
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. “I came to practice, you moron. You don’t get to be as good as I am by being effortless. That’s the lie people like you tell yourselves so you don’t have to feel bad about failing. It’s not talent, oh Chosen One. It’s discipline.”
A dull rosiness touched his cheeks. He looked away, staring at the floor. “Please don’t…don’t call me that,” he muttered. “The ‘Chosen One’ thing. It’s beginning to sound a lot more like ‘Cursed One’ lately.”
The weight of the week’s rumours sat between them, heavy and suffocating.
“Maybe if you didn’t throw sparring partners across the room—”
“That—was an accident,” he snapped, his voice cracking with a sudden, raw vulnerability. “A mistake.”
“People with your kind of power don’t get to make mistakes,” Gwen said, her voice dropping. She realized, with a jolt, that she wasn’t just talking about him.
Will lowered his wand, his spirit seemingly deflating. “Yeah. I’m starting to get that.”
He wiped a hand across the back of his neck, and for a second, his collar pulled tight. Gwen’s eyes dropped to the obsidian lines of obsidian branching up from his spine looked like deep, internal cracks in a marble statue.
Gwen felt a sharp prick of irritation at his surrender. She didn’t want him broken; she wanted him better. She signalled the hobgoblin to reset a fresh automaton.
“Aegis Bastion,” she incanted. The golden shield erupted around her, a flawless, translucent dome of interlocking geometric gold. The dummy fired a disarming charm; the shield absorbed it with a musical hum, not even rippling.
“Are you looking for applause or a bow?” Will asked, though his eyes were fixed on the shield’s structure with a hungry intensity.
“I want you to pay attention,” she snapped, dropping the spell. “What did you notice?”
“Uh, you’re really good…?”
Gwen rolled her eyes so hard it hurt. “The resonance, Holloway. The frequency.”
“I’ve told Bryn a thousand times,” Will said, stepping closer until he was within her personal space, the scent of patchouli and sweaty exertion radiating off him. “I’m not getting this resonance thing. I can feel it, but it’s like…whenever I try to control it…it’s like wrestling with water.”
She rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to wrestle it,” she commanded. “Wand up. Face the dummy.”
He hesitated, then obeyed, squaring his shoulders. “Aegis—”
“Don’t,” she interrupted, stepping behind him. She hesitated for a microsecond before placing a hand on his shoulder and the other on his forearm. His muscles were like corded iron under his dark cotton shirt, vibrating with untapped tension. Inflexible. Useless.
“You’re too rigid,” she said.
As she adjusted his locked elbow, she had to step into his personal space, her chest nearly brushing his back. He stiffened at her touch, resisted when she tested the tension. From this vantage point, she could see the splintered dark mark in terrifying detail. The black-glass veins didn’t just stop at his neck; they crept into his hairline, shimmering with a faint, vitrified violet hue.
She reached up, her thumb hovering just a fraction of an inch from an obsidian branch behind his ear. She could feel an unnerving cold radiating from the scar, even through the heat of his exertion. It was a fragment of a death curse, frozen in time.
“You’re trying to force your magic into the wand,” she explained, her tone more calm than she felt, “like pushing a whole spool through the eye of a needle at once.” She adjusted his stance, her fingers lingering near the cold, quartz-like lines. “Point with your mind first.”
He snorted, a brief flash of his familiar stubbornness. “Point with my mind. Right. Real helpful, O’Dorchaidhe.”
She squeezed his arm, a silent warning. “What did you…feel,” she said, the word tasting like ash in her mouth, “when I cast the shield? What went through your mind when you saw it?”
Will went quiet. He looked at the training dummy, his gaze distant. “Strong,” he said softly. “Maybe… bright? Determined.”
Gwen felt a strange flutter in her stomach. “That’s better. Instead of thinking ‘strong’ or ‘unbreakable,’ you need to be determined that nothing can stop you. You aren’t forcing the magic into a shape; you are telling the world that there is no path through you. Tell the air that nothing will pass through.”
He glanced at her sideways, his face inches from hers. “Are you recording this for a comedy reel?”
“Holloway. Now.”
“Nothing will pass through,” Will mumbled.
“Pathetic,” she hissed. “Say it like you actually want to live, Chosen One.”
His body coiled at the title, his frustration finally finding a target. He planted his feet, his grip on the rowan branch tightening. “Nothing will pass through,” he said, his voice gaining a gravelly edge.
“Again.”
“Nothing will pass through!”
Gwen felt it then—the shift in the air. The resonance changed from blunt chaos to a low, focused thrum. It moved from his mind, through his shoulder, and into the elder wood of his wand. He felt it, too. His posture relaxed, his movements becoming fluid. Confident.
“Nothing will pass through,” he whispered, a smirk finally touching his lips.
“Now give it a try,” she encouraged, stepping back.
“Aegis Bastion!”
The shield that erupted was different this time. It wasn’t as precise as Gwen’s, but it was massive, a roaring sun-gold wall that pulsed with raw, stubborn will. The dummy launched a spell. The shield flickered, the light dancing dangerously.
“Don’t back down now, Holloway!” Gwen shouted, her heart racing, her palms clammy with recalled heat. “You’ll never cast a shield as strong as mine if you give up at the first sign of a tremor.”
Will bared his teeth. “Nothing will pass through,” he said under his breath.
Another spell hit. The shield groaned, but it held. The flicker was less visible.
Gwen watched him for a moment, her chest tight with a confusing blend of pride and renewed rivalry. He had the power; he just needed her structure. It had the possibility of a terrifying combination.
“Keep practising,” she said, turning toward her own training station to hide the small, traitorous smile on her face. “I’m looking forward to the day I get to actually pummel you in our Defence Seminar. I’d hate for it to be too easy.”
By the following week, the atmosphere at Cairn-Gait had shifted from a buzzing unease to a polished, deceptive calm. The Highland mist, once a potential shroud for headless horrors, now felt like nothing more than a damp nuisance. Gwen was perfectly fine with her instincts being wrong. In fact, she welcomed it. A one-off tragedy was a variable she could categorize and file away, allowing her to refocus on the only thing that truly mattered: her ascent.
She moved through her classes like a scalpel. Her theoretical scores were, as expected, flawless. Even in the wretched Integration of Technology & Magic, she managed to bridge the gap between ancient sigils and silicon with a grace that felt acceptable. She was surgical with her participation now—raising her hand only when the question was complex enough to stump everyone else. She wasn’t an eager, hand-waving, know-it-all like Bryn Hall.
Even Will Holloway seemed to have settled into a rhythm. The ‘Cursed One’ rumours had begun to lose their teeth as he stopped accidentally detonating his practice equipment. Whether it was Bryn’s frantic tutoring or the secret, midnight mantra Gwen had burned into his mind, he had finally found the dimmer switch for his raw, chaotic resonance.
The social architecture was also falling into place. Sloan’s first Circle event—the annual voting in of new tomes for the Circle’s private collection—was a triumph of Vespertine aesthetics and Aurelian logic. Gone were the dusty traditions of dreary, sleepy debates while drinking whisky. Sloan had introduced themed cocktails, orchestrated lively book presentations, and ‘The Blind Scorecards’—Gwen’s brainchild—to ensure that new tomes were selected based on intellectual merit rather than family names. The tome Gwen had suggested—The Geometry of Veils—had been voted in unanimously.
Everything was back to normal. The world was structured. The world was safe.
Friday’s Defence Seminar was like uncorking champagne on a perfect week. The Defence Seminar was held in the large gymnasium, a vaulted cavern where the air always tasted of stone dust and old sweat.
“O’Dorchaidhe. Holloway. Centre floor,” Professor Prospero ordered.
Gwen stepped forward without hesitation. She didn’t mind the pairing. In fact, she felt a dark, electric thrill at the prospect. She caught Will’s eye as he squared up across from her. He looked different—the exhaustion had been replaced by a focused, confident stillness.
“Try not to be too disappointed when I win, Princess,” Will murmured, a cheeky, arrogant smirk tugging at his lips. He raised his wrist to show off a corded bracelet strung with obsidian and tiger’s eye beads. He’d taken her advice.
“Don’t worry about me, Holloway,” Gwen snapped, drawing out her favoured blackthorn twig for protection, her braid aligned with her spine. “Worry about the fact that I’m the one who taught you how to stand. I’d hate to be the one to knock you back down.”
The duel began not with a bang, but with a ripple of sheer, predatory intent. Gwen launched a disarming charm—not the clumsy, wide-arced version taught in the introductory syllabus, but a diamond-hard needle of silver light.
Will didn’t flinch.
A golden shield erupted around him, and Gwen’s breath hitched in her throat. It wasn’t the roaring, undisciplined sun he’d cast on the moor; it was tighter, more mathematical. It was her shield—an unnervingly accurate copy of the geometric lattice she had spent only minutes helping him refine. He caught her spell, the resonance humming as the gold absorbed the impact with a sound like a distant bell. He winked at her through the translucent barrier, looking far too comfortable.
Gwen felt a spike of heat that had nothing to do with the room’s temperature. It was an addictive frustration. Usually, her opponents were static, predictable obstacles she moved around with bored efficiency. But Will was forcing her to be proactive. He was a moving target, an evolving puzzle, and the effort it took to stay one step ahead of him was a challenge she hadn’t realized she was craving.
She pivoted, her movements a blur of charcoal tartan and silver-blonde hair. She didn’t just cast; she orchestrated. She threw a series of low-level stunners in a syncopated rhythm, watching the way his green eyes tracked her. He was fast, yes, but more than that—he was vast.
Then came his counter.
Will dropped his shield and lunged forward. His disarming charm shot toward her with a velocity that defied physics. It wasn’t a needle; it was a cannonball of raw, focused intent. Gwen barely had time to summon her own Aegis Bastion. The impact sent a shudder through her entire frame, the gold geometry of her shield vibrating so violently it sang a high, mourning note.
In that moment, Gwen felt it—the true, terrifying scale of him. Behind that single spell was an ocean of untapped magical energy, an unlimited reservoir that made her own carefully cultivated reserves look like a garden pond. She loathed the realization. An O’Dorchaidhe was meant to be the pinnacle, yet here was a boy who could drown her in light if he simply learned to use what he had.
The gym went silent. The Vapours in the back rows stopped whispering; the Inks in the front stopped preening.
For six minutes, they were the only two people in the world. It was a conversation of power—Gwen’s analytic precision meeting Will’s unstoppable force. She saw the way his eyes widened when she successfully mirrored his rhythm, and she felt a traitorous pulse of satisfaction when she forced him to take a step back.
She wanted to pummel him. She wanted to strip away that arrogant smirk and replace it with the realization that she was his superior. But beneath the pride, a new, cold fire took root in her marrow. She wasn’t his match—not yet. Not in raw power. But she would make herself into a force that would make even the Chosen one shudder. She’d never again freeze when confronting wild magic. She’d sharpen her mind into a blade until it could cut through his sun.
Winning was only meaningful if the opponent was worthy, and Will Holloway was the first person in her life who demanded her absolute, undivided attention.
“Enough!” the professor called, his voice echoing through the vaulted silence.
The spells dissipated, leaving the air smelling like a struck match and the sizzle of metallic sparks. Both Gwen and Will were breathing hard, their eyes locked in a stalemate that felt more intimate than any conversation they’d ever had. Her pulse was a frantic hammer against her ribs, her body shivering from the effort of meeting his strength.
“Impressive,” the professor noted, scribbling on his clipboard with a frown that suggested he was reassessing everything he knew about first-years. “Control and power. Take your seats.”
Gwen turned away first, her chin high, but her hand was trembling as she tucked her blackthorn twig back into her leather satchel. If guiding him one time meant this… She didn’t want to be his little helper. She was a hunter who’d finally found a creature worth the chase.