The violet hum from the afternoon’s resonance still throbbed beneath Gwen’s skin, a restless, phantom heat she couldn’t completely ignore. Completing assigned readings in her claimed corner of the Aurelius common room was an imperfect distraction, with the comforts of hushed, ancient privilege and the indelicate company of gossiping portraits, melted beeswax candles, and the comings and goings of a hundred personal perfumes. Firelight licked at the gilded spines of leather-bound tomes, casting long, dancing shadows across the mahogany wainscotting and the dark royal blue velvet of the wingback chairs.
A hobgoblin, its skin the colour of bruised slate and dressed in the stiff, starch-collared livery of the Chancellor’s office, scurried toward her. With a low, clicking bow that made its joints pop, it extended a gnarled hand holding a heavy vellum envelope. The seal was ebony wax, but Gwen’s name was written in shimmering, liquid silver ink that pulsed with a slow, mercurial heartbeat.
A summons from Chancellor Eddow.
Gwen felt the familiar, sharp spike of pride. Finally, she thought, her fingers tracing the edge of the vellum. A formal inquiry into the security breach. She noticed her roommate, Elodie Fawley, watching from a nearby chaise lounge, her eyes narrow with envy. Gwen subtly lifted the envelope so the silver ink caught the firelight—a quiet, unignorable reminder that while others occupied space at Cairn-Gait, Gwenhwyfar O’Dorchaidhe commanded it.
But the pride curdled the moment she stepped into the Chancellor’s private study.
The room was a sprawling, two-tiered cavern of gothic opulence and arcane clutter. Overhead, a massive, brass-and-iron orrery groaned as it tracked the celestial dance of astronomical phenomena. The walls were a vertical maze of overflowing bookcases and living portraits of former Chancellors; Gwen offered a sharp, respectful nod to her great-great-uncle Gawain, whose painted eyes darted toward the Chancellor’s desk in a silent warning.
Chancellor Eddow sat behind a desk carved from a single, gnarled hunk of black oak over a vaguely floral wool area rug. Beside him stood Professor Prospero, his penny-brown linen suit impeccably pressed, but his expression unusually frayed. And in a spindly guest chair, looking agonizingly out of place in his rumpled flannel and scuffed vintage shoes, sat Will Holloway.
“Sit, Miss O’Dorchaidhe,” Eddow commanded.
Gwen sat, pointedly angling her chair away from Will’s before settling with the poise of a queen.
Eddow waved a hand, a sapphire ring on his middle finger humming with resonance, and a shimmering curtain of silence fell over the room, sealing them in an impenetrable sound barrier. “What is said within these walls stays within them. To speak of it outside is to forfeit your place at this school.”
Gwen inclined her head, her spine a rod of cold iron. “Understood, Chancellor.”
“A Dullahan is no random spectre,” Eddow began, his voice like the grinding of tectonic plates. “The Rider is a targeted curse. At this point, we can only speculate, but with good reason, that its primary quarry was the Chosen One. His attendance was not announced officially; even so, we knew he would be recognized. And that recognition has no doubt reached far behind Cairn-Gait.”
Will shifted, his jaw tightening so hard a muscle jumped in his cheek. He didn’t look frightened; he looked crushed, as if the title of Chosen One was a weight shackling him.
“Yet the methodology is… troubling,” Prospero added, pacing the perimeter of the faded rug. “The Rider didn’t strike at Holloway directly. The curse binding the Rider seemingly targets Vapours—all Vapours. Some think the Hollow Lord’s followers are behind it, but I fear it is more political. The influx of Vapour students this year has stirred…old resentments.” His eyes pinched, a pained recollection dropping his gaze. “And for the Chosen One’s name to finally be publicly known…”
“Regardless,” Eddow interrupted, “my priority is keeping the Chosen One safe. The prophecy is a burden the school cannot afford to lose.”
Will looked down at his scuffed boots, a dull flush of embarrassment creeping up his neck—the lightning trails of his curse-mark dark against the rising crimson. Gwen’s eyes narrowed. The Chosen One. Even when he was the bait, he was the prize.
“Which brings us to your performance today,” Prospero said, stopping before Gwen. His eyes sparkled with a terrifying, mercurial light. “The pairing in my anchor-less exercise was no accident, Miss O’Dorchaidhe. I arranged it to test your compatibility. Your resonance control is… exceptional.”
Gwen’s heart leaped with excitement. Impressing Prospero this early would surely get her into one of his limited seminars. “Compatibility, Professor?”
“You are arguably the most capable student in your year,” Prospero noted. He paused, a small, irritating smile playing on his lips. “Aside from Bryn Hall, perhaps, whose theoretical absorption is quite staggering for a Vapour.”
Gwen’s hands crossed over her charcoal-and-blue plaid skirt, her thumb twisting the signet ring around her pinkie. Bryn Hall. To be compared to that wide-eyed Vapour with her mass-produced amethyst anchor pendant and highlighter-drenched texts was a slap in the face delivered with a velvet glove.
“However,” Prospero continued, “as a Circle member and an O’Dorchaidhe, you have the most to offer. You are uniquely capable of supporting William Holloway.”
The blood drained from Gwen’s face. “Supporting him?”
“You will stay close to him,” Eddow said, the finality in his voice leaving no room for protest. “You will tutor him. You will sharpen his defensive and offensive magic until it is as precise as your own. You are to be his shield and his mentor until the threat is neutralized.”
Fury erupted in Gwen’s chest, hot and acidic. It nearly choked her. All her ambitions, her perfect scores, her carefully curated legacy—reduced to being a glorified bodyguard for a boy who couldn’t even cast a shield without her hand to hold. She wasn’t an architect of the new age; she was a support beam for a Chosen One she hadn’t even chosen to like.
“It would be an honour to serve the school, Chancellor,” Gwen said, her voice a masterpiece of icy, controlled deception.
Eddow nodded, satisfied. He looked at Will with a paternal warmth that Gwen found utterly frustrating. “This is a great opportunity, Will. I expect you to learn everything you can.”
“Yes, Chancellor,” Will muttered, his voice thick with the weight of expectations he clearly never asked for.
Eddow smiled at Will’s attempt at manners. Gwen felt all the more boiled. It would be just like Will Holloway to luck into having the most renowned living sorcerer as his mentor.
“Dismissed.”
Gwen rose and spun with the fluid grace of a blade, her chunky lug soles a hurried, muffled echo behind her. She was through the oak doors before Will could even find his feet. She needed the cold air of the North Wing; she needed a steaming hot cup of black tea and the sharp, familiar bitterness of a rant with Sloan to wash away the taste of this humiliation.
Why was everything in her life suddenly about Will Holloway?
The hallway outside was a tunnel of velvet shadows and flickering sconces. Her tempo was a steady, but furious race to escape.
“Gwen, wait!”
Will was jogging to catch up. He was taller than he looked, his stride easily matching her frantic pace. He looked down at her, his green eyes searching hers with an irritating look of concern.
“Look, I didn’t know they were going to do that,” he panted, breathless from stress rather than exertion. “The pairing, the tutoring thing… it wasn’t my idea to drag you into my mess.”
Gwen stopped so abruptly that he nearly collided with her. She spun, her eyes flashing like a lightning strike across a grey horizon. “Of course it wasn’t. You don’t have ideas, Holloway. You have accidents. And now, your accidents have become my responsibility.”
Will flinched, but then his expression shifted. The exhaustion remained, but a familiar, infuriating spark of mischief returned to his eyes. He stepped closer, and for a second, the air between them thrummed with the violet heat of the afternoon.
“This doesn’t change anything,” she hissed, stabbing a perfectly manicured nail into the centre of his chest. He didn’t pull away; he just looked down at her finger, then back at her face. “I’m not your lackey, and I’m certainly not your friend. I’ll do this because an O’Dorchaidhe doesn’t fail her duties, but don’t expect a smile.”
Will didn’t flinch this time. Instead, he leaned in, his voice dropping to a low, teasing drawl that made her pulse jump. “I’m not asking for a lackey, Gwen. And trust me, I’m not looking for a friend.”
Gwen’s eyes narrowed. He was probably mocking her. It was a sharp callback to the day they met—when he’d rejected her offer of friendship.
“Good,” she said, her voice a low, dangerous silk. “Because I’m not going to be gentle. I’m going to break every sloppy habit you have until you’re a Chosen One who can actually survive a night without me holding your hand.”
She meant every word. As much as she hated being ordered to help him, this was an opportunity. Helping him improve was just another way for her to overcome her own limitations.
Will looked at her for a long, quiet moment. The hallway was silent, the only sound the distant crackle of a thousand candles. The teasing light in his eyes deepened into something darker, something far more challenging.
“Fine,” he said softly, his voice echoing in the gloom. “No friends. Just business.”
He turned to walk away, but paused, looking back over his shoulder with a devastating, lopsided smirk. “But for the record, Princess? I’ve never asked you to be gentle.”
Gwen stood alone in the dark, her hands trembling as she watched him disappear into the shadows. The violet glow was long gone, but the fire in her chest was just beginning to burn.
*
Gwen wasn’t inherently opposed to the concept of mentoring. In fact, the Aurelian Circle demanded it—a calculated passing of the torch that ensured the hierarchy of Cairn-Gait Conservatory remained unshakable. By their third year, every member was expected to mould a fledgling into a proper asset. But Gwen was currently embroiled in the delicate, high-stakes choreography of selecting her own mentor, a choice between formidable Inks that would define her career. She simply did not have the cognitive bandwidth to waste on a project as structurally unsound as Will Holloway.
When she voiced her vitriol to Sloan over a pot of bitter Lapsang Souchong, her friend had merely smirked behind a fan of colour swatches, her eyes never leaving the Equinox Social mood board.
“You could always tutor him badly,” Sloan suggested, her eyes dancing with impish malice. “A few ‘accidental’ mispronunciations? He’d be back to blowing up his own anchors in a week.”
Gwen’s lips thinned. “An O’Dorchaidhe does nothing badly, Sloan. Even the annoying things people make them do.”
But beneath the bravado, a cold knot of anxiety was tightening in her chest. Her parents had already written to her, their letter sealed in heavy, cream-coloured wax, praising her ‘strategic positioning’ during the Dullahan attack. They were proud she had ‘ingratiated’ herself into the centre of the crisis. They didn’t realize she was now tethered to the very personification of the crisis.
Sooner or later, the rumours would reach the O’Dorchaidhe estate. And while the gossiping Ink families were plenty, there was one primary conduit for domestic espionage: her brother.
She cornered him on Thursday, just as the Great Hall began to spill out its sea of wool and plaid. She caught Tristan by the sleeve of his cerulean wool blazer and hauled him into a shadow-drenched alcove beneath a soaring gothic arch.
“Dear little sister,” Tristan drawled, a lazy, spiteful grin spreading across his face. He reached out with a lightning-fast hand, ruffling her hair and intentionally knocking her velvet headband askew. “How lovely to be graced by your presence. I was beginning to think you’d finally traded your family for a library card.”
“I was avoiding you, Tristan. There’s a difference,” Gwen snapped, slapping his hand away and meticulously readjusting her headband.
Tristan was the Collections Chair—the keeper of the Circle’s most valuable tomes and relics—and he wore the authority with the same suave as his tailored waistcoat and silver chain holding his signet ring, gleaming in the dim light. Gwen had spent her entire first month keeping him at arm’s length. She hadn’t been his ‘little sister’ for years. Her father had made certain they were rivals first.
“I’m wounded,” he said, pressing a hand to his heart in a mocking display of agony. He leaned against the dark wood panelling of the alcove, looking down at her with grey eyes that mirrored her own. “So, what have I done to earn the illustrious attention of the ‘Hero of the North Wing’?”
“Chancellor Eddow has mandated that I tutor Will Holloway,” she said, cutting through his theatrics like a scalpel.
The minute widening of Tristan’s eyes was the only win she needed. He hadn’t heard yet. The narrative was still hers to cage.
“I know you’re going to squeal to Father,” she accused, her voice low and biting.
“How unkind, Gwenhwyfar. I would only ever brag about your… unconventional achievements,” he said, the word unconventional dripping with implied scandal.
Gwen lunged forward, grabbing the starched lapels of his cerulean shirt, bunching the expensive wool in her fists. “Shut up. Here’s the deal: you will not pass along a single one of the hysterical rumours about to follow me. You will be factual. You will be laconic.”
She pulled him closer, her ambition flaring in her eyes. “This is a mandate from the Chancellor. I am earning his favour and putting the ‘Chosen One’ in my debt. That is the story. That is the only story.”
Tristan raised his palms, though his grin remained sharp. “Alright, alright. I won’t write home about your illicit love affair with a Vapour.”
“Don’t,” she warned, her voice vibrating with a frequency that made the nearby dust motes shiver. She released him, smoothing her own charcoal blazer with trembling fingers. “You might have the leverage of a third-year, but I have the Chancellor’s ear. We can be allies, or we can be thorns. Be on my side, Tristan, and I’ll remember it when you inevitably trip over your own arrogance.”
Tristan’s mask of playfulness cracked. The air in the alcove suddenly felt heavier, charged with the electric sibling spite that had defined their adolescence. In their father’s eyes, Tristan and Gwen were instruments he could tune to play his arrangement of the O’Dorchaidhe legacy. Even one wrong note could earn his punishing silence. It was safer to hide the mistakes and wait for a different sour note to catch their father’s attention.
“Fine,” Tristan agreed, his voice chilling into a business-like drone. “I won’t spread wild rumours.”
Gwen felt her shoulders drop a fraction of an inch.
“But,” he added, pointing a finger at her, “if our parents ask me directly about things they’ve heard from other families, I’m not lying to cover your tracks.”
“I didn’t ask for a cover,” Gwen said coolly. “I asked for the truth.”
“Easy enough.” Tristan straightened his blazer, his effortless charm returning like a shifting tide. “I scratch your back, you scratch mine. We keep the reports sterile. No exaggerations.”
Gwen nodded once. She drew blackthorn from her satchel, scratched her palm, and offered her forearm. Tristan rolled his eyes at the formality, but he let her scratch his palm. They clasped each other’s forearms, the bloodline drawn inside their palms pressed against each other’s skin.
“I solemnly swear not to knowingly speak false words against you,” Gwen intoned.
A sharp, electric jolt of silver light passed from her stinging palm into his skin, sealing the vow. Tristan repeated the words, his voice a low murmur, and Gwen felt the answering sting of his magic binding her.
Tristan pulled his hand away and immediately shoved past her, his shoulder catching hers with enough force to send her stumbling back against the wood-panelled wall. A petty, childish display of dominance.
“Good luck tutoring your little project, Gwenny,” he called out loudly as he stepped back into the corridor, ensuring his voice carried to a group of passing second-years. “Try not to let that clumsy Vapour rub off on your reputation!”
Gwen didn’t look at the students. She smoothed her skirt, her jaw set in a line of pure, unadulterated determination. She had secured her flank. Now, she just had to survive the front line.
*
The defence practice room was a drafty, vaulted cavern of soot-stained granite and soaring gothic arches, tucked away in the bowels of the West Wing. It smelled of old, damp, congealed wax and the faint, iron-like tang of long-dormant charms. Shadows clung to the corners, illuminated only by the flickers of iron-wrought sconces and the occasional, violent flare of Gwen’s and Will’s exchange of magic.
“Maybe I do want you to be gentle,” Will panted, rotating his shoulder with a wince. He was leaning against a dark wood buttress, his vintage cable-knit sweater rumpled and dusted with stone grit.
Gwen didn’t lower her blackthorn twig. Her tailored charcoal blazer was now unbuttoned, and a single, rebellious strand of platinum escaped her headband. She was vibrating with a silent, sapped fury. For twenty minutes, she had hurled a relentless barrage of non-lethal offence hexes at him—immobilizing and binding charms that snapped like whips.
His technique was atrocious—infuriatingly basic, like a child swinging a mallet—but his raw power was a sickening, beautiful thing to behold. Every time she pushed him to the brink, his Aegis Bastion flared to life. It wasn’t the refined gold of her own; it was a wild, shimmering flood of white-hot light that refused to stay submerged beneath her superior skill.
Worse, she was beginning to feel the familiar, hollow ache of magical exhaustion in her marrow. Her dominant arm felt like lead. Will, however, looked like he could go for another hour. Or three. His reserves weren’t just deep; they were abyssal. It was an insult to every hour she had spent studying, yet she found herself perversely drawn to the pressure of it. She wasn’t just tutoring him; she was using him as a whetstone. If she could learn to withstand this level of raw, unpolished force, no other sorcerer in the Circle would ever touch her.
“We were supposed to be duelling, Holloway,” Gwen said, her voice a clipped, icy rasp that betrayed none of her fatigue. “You would feel less pummelled if you had actually bothered to hit me back.”
His expression was incredulous. His collar shifted as he scratched the back of his neck, revealing more of the jagged, obsidian-black branching up his throat. “I did,” he said.
Gwen rolled her eyes, a sharp, dismissive motion. “Disarming charms? That hardly qualifies as offensive. In a real fight, a disarmed opponent simply retaliates with anchor-less magic. And unlike you, Holloway, most sorcerers don’t need a conduit for simple spells.”
Will ducked his gaze, his dark curls shadowing his face. “I can also do that kinetic push…thing,” he muttered.
“How uncharitable of me—you know two spells,” she corrected, her thumb finding the silver signet ring on her finger. She began to twist it—her rhythmic, anxious tic. She hated how his proximity made her fingers itch to move. “Both of which would be entirely useless against the Dullahan. Spectral entities are indifferent to physics. Do you really know nothing else?”
“I know what’s in the standard defence seminar,” he said, his voice tightening. “I’m playing catch-up, Gwen. I don’t exactly have a library of forbidden hexes in my family’s mansion.”
“That can’t be all,” she argued, her frustration bubbling over. She stepped into his space, not asking before taking his wrist to examine his obsidian-and-tiger’s-eye bracelet. At least his anchor stones weren’t exhibiting any signs of fatigue. “This is a good match for you,” she said quietly, reluctant to admit her approval.
The tension in his arm—like a opossum playing dead in a wolf’s jaws—caught her notice. She released his wrist, instantly relieving the awkwardness of the sudden touch. She stepped back—just one step—allowing him the space.
“Surely someone was teaching the ‘Chosen One’ since the cradle,” she said. “Your protectors—the people who knew—they wouldn’t just leave you dormant.”
Will’s shoulders slouched, the weight of his title visibly pulling at his frame. He looked suddenly small against the towering gothic architecture. “No,” he said quietly, his gaze fixed on a crack in the granite floor. “I was raised by normies. They told me I was a normie, too.”
The air in the room seemed to flash-freeze. Gwen went cold. “Impossible. The prophecy has been debated in every sorcerer’s household for eighteen years. Even the non-magical would know the gossip.”
“Normies don’t gossip about prophecies over their morning coffee,” he said. “And it’s not like I knew it was about me.” He shrugged, a jerky, defensive motion. “Holloway isn’t even my real last name. It was my mother’s. Used to hide me. My family… lied. To protect me, I guess.”
Gwen’s mind raced. Holloway. His mother’s maiden name offered a disguise. But it also made his bloodline a secret.
Will met her gaze then, his green eyes sharp with a sudden, biting observation. “Not everyone wants to spend their childhood being fitted for a crown they didn’t ask for.”
Gwen felt the barb—a direct hit on her own obsessive pursuit of prestige—but she didn’t flinch. She had worked for her crown. He had been born with one—unlimited renown promised since infancy—and he was treating it like skunk spray he couldn’t wash off. Yet, as she looked at him, she felt a strange, unwelcome flutter in her chest. It was the first time she had seen the boy behind the prophecy, and he was dangerously easy to empathize with.
“By eleven, they couldn’t hide it,” he continued, a humourless smile touching his lips. “The ‘accidents’ started. But my aunt and uncle… they were just scared. They told me my parents died because of ‘bad magic.’ They didn’t mention I was the designated target for an elitist cult.”
Gwen felt a traitorous twinge of guilt. She squashed it under the heel of her ambition. She needed his power to be a challenge, not a tragedy. “When did you find out the truth?”
“This year,” he said, leaning his head back against the dark stone.
Gwen’s composure shattered. “This year?” She felt a surge of hot, prickly rage—not at him, but at the sheer, staggering waste of it. “You can’t mean… They let your magic sit there for eighteen years? They knew—and did nothing?”
“Yeah, they knew,” he said, twisting his beaded bracelet around his wrist. “But they’re normies. It’s not like they could’ve taught me anything.”
Gwen felt her blood drain from her body. It was a nightmare. She’d been learning to cast basic spells before she could tie her own shoes. Her childhood had been a relentless, beautiful grind of lessons in power. The thought of all that raw potential in Will being shoved into a dark closet made her vision blur with fury.
Worse, it was a glaring reminder of the vast differences in their potential. She’d been practising since infancy, and he’d come this far with no instruction. He was incredibly capable.
She couldn’t resist asking, “How… are you this good?”
His eyes brightened with surprise.
“You’re not good, Holloway,” she reminded him, ensuring the chill in her tone kept his ego in check, “but someone with your potential and no guidance should’ve levelled a neighbourhood or ten.”
Will exhaled a weak laugh. “Luck, maybe?” A frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. “Chancellor Eddow hand-delivered my Cairn-Gait acceptance letter,” he explained, oblivious to her internal meltdown. “He taught me basics over the summer.”
“A summer?” Gwen paced the small space. Her chill was melting. “Holloway, you’re standing here with—what, about four months of training? But you can already mimic a shield spell that took me… Do you have any idea how… disgusting that is? To have that much natural resonance reserve and no one to tune it?”
Will’s head tilted, unsure whether to appreciate the harsh compliment or pick apart the envious insult.
“Holloway, you were accepted into the most prestigious invitation in the magical world without even applying,” Gwen said, trying to regain her footing, but her sanity was slipping. “You were counselled by the greatest sorcerer of our age. You’re destined to fulfill a prophecy that will spawn countless history books. Most people would kill for that relevance.”
“Four months ago, I was worried about my grades and how to pay for school,” Will said, his voice rising as he stepped toward her. His scent of wood-smoke and patchouli reached her, and up close, the shattered obsidian of his curse-mark shimmered, as if the dark quartz was vibrating under his skin. “Now, I’m responsible for the fate of everyone? It’s not a dream come true for me, Gwen. It’s a nightmare.”
“Think of it this way: If you fail, the world won’t end,” Gwen countered with biting pragmatism, though she was acutely aware how close he was. She could feel the icy resonance coming off his dormant curse-mark. “The Hollow Lord will purge the normies and Vapours, but Cairn-Gait will likely be fine.”
Will stared at her, a mixture of perplexity and disgust flickering across his features. Gwen felt a sudden, desperate need to bridge the gap, to see that lopsided smirk return.
“It was a joke, Holloway,” she said, the words feeling clumsy. “You really think I want the world purged?”
He searched her face for a long, agonizing moment. Gwen hated how much his opinion seemed to matter in the silence of the vault. Finally, a soft, thin smile touched his lips.
“No,” he said quietly. “You wouldn’t be the ‘Hero of the North Wing’ if you hated Vapours that much.”
The title felt like a bucket of ice water. Gwen flinched, the memory of the Dullahan’s bone-whip flashing and Maya’s look of devastated fury flashing in her mind. She didn’t feel like a hero; she felt like a student who was barely holding on. She looked at Will, his raw power humming just beneath his skin, and felt a surge of that addictive rivalry. She needed the distraction.
“Enough self-pitying,” Gwen snapped, forcing her composure back into place. “The Dullahan only responded to ice magic. We’ll start there. I’ll select a few simple ice hexes for you to review before our next meeting.”
Will’s head tilted. “Bryn found research saying most spectral creatures hate fire. Shouldn’t we be focusing on—?”
“Bryn Hall only knows what her mass-produced paperbacks tell her,” Gwen interrupted, her voice serrated. “She hasn’t felt the resonance of a death-spectre. I have. Trust me, Holloway—do not use fire.”
Will nodded noncommittally. He wasn’t convinced, but he didn’t argue—not yet.
“Ice magic requires a specific internal focus,” Gwen instructed, moving through the forms. Her movements were sharp, exact, and elegant. “It’s like a ballet. You must hit each position with absolute precision. If you are a millisecond off, the moisture in the air won’t crystallize; it will just become damp air.”
“I have to learn ballet now?” Will teased, though his fingers fiddled with the obsidian and tiger’s eye beads nervously.
“If it helps you visualize, join a dance class, Holloway,” she bit back. “But no doubt you’d fumble that, too. You don’t know how to use your body. You’re all limbs and no leverage.” She looked him up and down, her gaze lingering for a fraction of a second on the obsidian veins that pulsed near his pulse point. “What did you do in the normie world? ‘Little League’? American football?”
Will’s jaw tightened. “No. I wasn’t on any teams,” he said, his voice flat. “My aunt and uncle wouldn’t allow it. They were terrified I’d have an ‘accident’ if I got too competitive or emotional. I spent my life trying to be invisible.”
Gwen felt a sudden, hollow ache. She couldn’t imagine a life without the thrill of the hunt, the rush of her riding competitions, the glorious joy of adding another ribbon or trophy to her display case. Will Holloway had been a prisoner of his own power, hidden behind a dead woman’s name and the obscurity of a normie suburb, denied the discovery of what that power could be.
“That’s your homework, then,” she said, turning her back to him to hide the softening in her eyes. She reached for her leather satchel, her movements jerky. “Join a sports club. Learn how to move. If you’re going to be a weapon, Holloway, you should at least learn how to aim.”
She centred across from him in the space, her blackthorn snapping up. “Let’s start simple. Glacio. Imagine cold. Focus on where the cold needs to go.”
Will exhaled, a visible cloud of frustration. He mimicked her wrist flick—a sharp, descending diagonal—and barked the incantation. Instead of the shard of frost Gwen expected, a massive, humid gust of wind blasted across the room. It wasn’t ice; it was a pressurized steam front.
Gwen dug her heels into the stone, casting a quick Bastion Aegis to keep from being blown off her feet. The raw, sweltering force of his resonance slammed into her shield, the gold geometry groaning under the weight of his failure. Even his mistakes were incredible.
“Precision, Will! Not pressure!” she yelled through the roar of the wind.
“Right—ah, I’m trying again!” he shouted back, his face flushed. The beads around his wrist clicked and twisted like a violent Newton’s cradle. This time, the moisture in the air didn’t just crystallize; it exploded. A flurry of slushy, disorganized sleet pelted the granite walls, coating crevices in a pathetic, dripping grey slush.
Gwen felt the magical exhaustion clawing at her bones. Every time she repaired the room after his outbursts, the slow drip of her refilling energy reserves drained again. Her breath was coming in shallow drags, and the signet ring on her finger felt like it weighed forty pounds. She was pushing her limits just to keep the training room from disintegrating under his untapped potential.
“One more,” she commanded, her voice thin. She stepped forward, her hand hovering near his raised arm to guide the arc. “Don’t push the magic. Lure it. It’s a freeze. It’s contained. Think sharp.”
Will took a breath, his eyes meeting hers. For a second, the ozone in the air felt heavy with something other than spells. He moved—a smoother, more controlled sweep. A single, perfect needle of ice formed in the air, gleaming like a diamond in the candlelight.
Gwen’s heart leaped. There.
But then, the needle shattered. Will’s resonance flared at the last second, a surge of violet light swallowing the frost and turning it into a spray of harmless lukewarm water that drenched Gwen’s charcoal blazer.
Gwen stood there, water dripping from the tip of her nose, her chest heaving. She was too tired to yell and too fascinated to be truly angry. She was witnessing a star trying to fit inside a bottle, and the bottle—his discipline—simply wasn’t strong enough yet.
“You’re a disaster,” she whispered, though her eyes were alight with the thrill of the hunt. She wasn’t just his tutor; she was the only one who knew how high his ceiling really was. And she would be the one to reach it with him.
“I’m sorry,” Will said, looking genuinely horrified as he reached out with a sleeve to dry her cheek. “I lost the intention thing at the end.”
Gwen stepped back, her cheek dry but still dripping. She checked her silver watch. She had already stayed longer than planned. And she needed to arrive early for the most critical business of her day, the inaugural one-on-one with her chosen mentor.
“Clean this mess up, Holloway,” she said, gathering her satchel. “Dry the floor before someone slips and breaks their neck. I have a meeting.”
As she walked toward the heavy oak door, she felt his gaze following her, warm and lingering.
“See you tomorrow,” he called out.
Gwen didn’t look back. She simply waved a dismissive hand over her shoulder and stepped out of the shadowed vault, her exhaustion vanishing as she donned her mask of icy perfection. She had a new role to play: the protégé of Isolde Thorne.
*
The Aurelian Circle Sanctuary was an architectural exclusion. Tucked away behind a dragon oil-painting in a spire that shouldn’t have existed according to the school’s external blueprints, it was a world of dark ebony wainscotting, oxblood leather, and the hushed, rhythmic ticking of a dozen grandfather clocks lost among imposing portraits and brimming bookcases like a hidden object game. The air was thick with the scent of bergamot, expensive liquors, and the dry, vanilla-sweet dust of first-edition grimoires.
Isolde Thorne, the third-year Vice Chairman, was already waiting in their reserved alcove. She was the personification of the Aurelian ideal: her dark hair was pinned up with silver needles, and she wore a structured velvet vest over a crisp, high-collared silk blouse and an aged iron pendant on a delicate, silver choker chain. On the low, claw-footed table between them sat a silver tea service and a stack of leather-bound tomes.
“Gwenhwyfar,” Isolde said, her voice a smooth, melodic purr. She gestured to the wingback chair opposite her. “Sit. The Darjeeling is perfectly steeped.”
Gwen sat, her spine barely touching the leather. She felt the immediate shift in atmosphere. With Will, the air was electric and volatile; here, it was stagnant and heavy with expectation. She preferred the weight. She understood the weight.
“I’ve reviewed the timeline you submitted,” Isolde began, pouring the black tea into translucent bone china. “To be Chairman by your third year is… ambitious. Even for an O’Dorchaidhe. But I find I have a taste for ambition. I’m looking for an ally who won’t flinch when the Circle needs to exert its influence over the Board of Trustees.”
“I don’t flinch, Isolde,” Gwen said, her voice regaining its serrated edge. “I have spent eighteen years preparing to be the standard by which this school is measured. I expect to be at the top of the rankings by the Solstice, and I expect your mentorship to provide the… let’s call it the context necessary to secure my father’s approval.”
Isolde smiled, a slow, calculated movement. “Spoken like a true Ink. And frankly, your start has been magnificent. I wanted to commend you personally on your positioning. To jump into the Vespertine fray—to face a Dullahan for a common Vapour—it showed a certain… flair for the dramatic that the student body eats up.”
Gwen took a sip of her tea. It was bitter, either a test or an insult set up by Isolde. Gwen didn’t let her displeasure show.
“And your current assignment,” Isolde continued, leaning forward, her silver needles catching the candlelight. “Tutoring the ‘Chosen One.’ It’s a masterstroke of political theatre. To have the rootless Vapour-born Holloway under your thumb, indebted to you? It effectively neuters any threat he poses to the established hierarchy. You’re turning a potential wild card into an O’Dorchaidhe asset. Wish I had the stomach for it.”
Gwen felt a sudden, sharp prickle at the base of her neck. It wasn’t pride. It was a strange, jagged defensiveness that caught her off guard.
“He isn’t an asset yet,” Gwen said, her voice perhaps a fraction too tight. “He’s a mess of unrefined resonance. And the Dullahan wasn’t about theatre. It was about containment.”
“Of course,” Isolde chuckled softly. “Though you should be careful. That Vapour girl you ‘saved’—Maya, was it?—is telling anyone who will listen that you marred her on purpose. She says you used the secare spell to claim a trophy from her, to show the Vapours exactly what the Inks think of them.”
Gwen’s grip on her teacup tightened until her knuckles turned white. “That’s horrible, I… I wouldn’t—I saved her life. The necrosis was—”
“It doesn’t matter,” Isolde interrupted smoothly. “The rumour makes you look powerful, Gwen. Dangerous, too. Let the Vapours fear your ‘mercy.’ It keeps them in their place. Just as your ‘tutoring’ will keep Holloway in his.”
Gwen looked down into the dark, swirling depths of her tea. She should have agreed. This was the rhetoric she had been raised on—the cold, transactional logic of her class. But for a fleeting, terrifying second, she saw Will’s face in the training room, looking small and crushed under the weight of a prophecy he never asked for.
“Holloway is… more complicated,” Gwen said, the words feeling like a betrayal of the room’s dark, polished silence.
Isolde’s eyes narrowed, her gaze suddenly clinical. “Is he? I hope you aren’t letting the ‘Hero’ title go to your head, Gwenhwyfar. Remember who you are. Ensuring the Circle’s legacy comes before charity.”
Gwen set her cup down with a sharp clack against the saucer. She forced her expression back into a mask of porcelain indifference. “I know exactly who I am, Isolde. And I know exactly what I need to do to secure my legacy.”
As the meeting continued, Gwen spoke of Circle expectations, the politics of career planning, and her strategy for the Equinox Social. She said all the right things, projecting the biting, determined ambition that Isolde expected. But as she sat in that cozy, secluded corner, surrounded by the finest things the magical world could offer, she couldn’t shake the feeling that the Circle Sanctuary felt smaller than it had an hour ago.