The granite of Cairn-Gait felt a few degrees colder the morning after the attack, as if the castle itself were shivering from the violation of its inner sanctum. As Gwen swept through the corridor, the rhythmic, lethal click-clack of her polished loafers against the stone was the only thing grounding her.
She had spent two hours in front of the vanity, draining the properties of two sprigs of lavender and chamomile to banish the puffiness from her eyes and mask the pallor of her skin. Dressed in a cropped black military-style jacket with ornate gold buttons—matching the metallic tone of her Ouroboros pin—over a sleek black turtleneck, paired with a heavy wool plaid mini-skirt in shades of charcoal and royal blue. Her platinum blonde hair was swept into a voluminous, messy top-knot, held in place by a royal blue silk headband tied in a delicate knot at the crown.
She looked perfect. She looked like a girl who hadn’t spent the previous night sobbing on a dusty floor. Even Sloan hadn’t noticed—or pretended not to.
Estelle was too preoccupied with a poor assignment mark to notice anyone else. She was curated, sunshine-hued arrogance, dressed in a sheer, ivory organza blouse with voluminous puff sleeves that caught the dim light of the corridor. Her high-waisted yellow plaid mini-skirt was cinched by a narrow leather belt, and a cream silk bow was pinned perfectly into her hair, making her look like a doll who had just stepped out of a vintage manor.
“How am I supposed to be observant when the atmosphere is simply tainted with depressed Vapours,” Estelle complained, adjusting the delicate cuff of her sleeve. “It’s a biological fact that mass distress creates a resonance disharmony for those of us with sensitive blood.”
Charlotte let out a dry, tried mumble. “All this moping for a nobody. I doubt even half the first-years knew her, and now half the entire school is blubbering. It’s a waste of energy.”
Gwen’s jaw tightened. While Estelle and Charlotte spoke of their superiority as if it were an inherited lounge chair, Gwen felt the weight of it like a suit of armour she had to polish every single day. To them, being an Ink was a birthright; to Gwen, it was a performance that required zero errors.
Sloan was a whirlwind of sharp perfume and sharper grievances. “If the Chancellor cancels the Equinox Social because some second-year Vapour couldn’t keep her limbs to herself, I will personally hex the entire infirmary,” Sloan hissed, her fingers white-knuckled on the strap of her designer bag. “The reputation of the Circle is hemorrhaging, Gwen. People are saying the ‘Ink’ is drying up. Like we can’t even protect our own hallways.”
Gwen didn’t answer. She couldn’t. Every time she closed her eyes, she felt the sickeningly clean resistance of the secare spell as it sliced through bone. Her left pinkie was raw, the skin chafed from the obsessive way she had been twisting her silver signet ring around her pinkie since 5:00 AM.
“We’ll need to triple the patrol rotation,” Gwen said, her voice a practised, icy chime. “I’ve already drafted the mandate. It’s not about volunteering anymore; it’s an Aurelian Circle requirement. We need to prove the Circle is unified.”
“More patrols?” Estelle pouted. “Gwen, our presence is supposed to be the prize, not the labour. With your patrol obsession, all the hot guys are too busy patrolling. Can’t we just let the groundskeepers handle the…mess?”
“The groundskeepers don’t have our resonance,” Gwen snapped, her eyes flashing. Inks were too arrogant to accept positions of such humble obscurity. “Strength isn’t just something you have, Estelle. It’s something you maintain. If the Circle can’t protect Cairn-Gait, we’re no better than the people say we are.”
Charlotte rolled her eyes. “Gwen, this perfect protector bit is getting old. Literally no one wants to—”
“I don’t care what they want,” Gwen interrupted, her eyes flashing with a sudden, chilling intensity. “The Social will only proceed if we step up. And we need to step up. Tradition is the only thing that separates us from the chaos outside those walls.”
She stopped dead.
The collision was avoided by a mere inch. Gwen recoiled, her silver-blonde hair whipping across her face as she found her path blocked. Leaning casually against a pedestal of dark marble was Will Holloway. He was squinting through his tortoiseshell glasses at a massive book, his dark, messy waves falling over a brow that looked perpetually troubled. Beside him, Cal Whitley stood in a sweater so pilled it looked like it was surviving on spite alone.
“Hey, watch the shoes, Princess,” Will said, his American drawl jarring against the hurried footfalls echoing in the hallowed hall. “These are vintage.”
A spike of heat coloured her cheeks—not the flush of embarrassment, but the burn of a rivalry that had suddenly become far too intimate. He had seen her break. He had caught her flowers. He was the only person alive who knew the Ice Princess of Aurelius was made of glass.
She needed to be angry. Because being angry was safer than being seen. The absolute, casual sacrilege of his posture was enough of an excuse. He happened to have his lower back pressed firmly against the bust of Gawain O’Dorchaidhe.
“Move, Holloway,” Gwen commanded, her voice humming with a cocktail of anxiety and sharp, dangerous fury.
Will finally looked up. His green eyes were bright, infuriatingly observant behind his smudged lenses. He scanned her face, looking for the girl he’d caught shedding tears, but Gwen offered him nothing but a wall of frost.
“There’s plenty of room in the hallway, Gwen,” he said, his tone softening just a fraction—a shift that made her skin prickle. “You don’t have to walk in a straight line just because your ancestors did.”
Sloan stepped forward, her lip curling in a study of Vespertine disdain, levelling a glare at Cal. “Is that wool, Whitley? Or did you find a discarded sheep on the moors? You’re shedding on the floor.”
Cal’s face went scarlet, his Scottish accent thickening as he bit back a retort. “At least the wool is real,” he shot back. “Unlike the personality of anyone in your tax bracket.”
“The audacity,” Estelle whispered, clinging to Gwen’s arm, her organza blouse shifting against Gwen’s sleeve. Gwen found the farce of closeness especially irritating today.
“They act as if they belong here,” Estelle said, practically beaming at the chance to put someone down. “They don’t even realize the air they’re breathing is a courtesy provided by our ancestors.”
Charlotte didn’t even look at Cal; she looked through him. “It’s like a stray dog in a cathedral,” she murmured. “One wonders why the doors were left unlocked.”
But Gwen wasn’t looking at Cal. Her gaze was locked on Will’s shoulder, which was currently nudging the marble jawline of her great-uncle.
“Do you have any idea who that is?” she hissed at Will, stepping into his personal space. The scent of him—patchouli, coffee, rain, and something warm and electric—threatened to dismantle her focus.
Will glanced back at the bust, then back to her. He shrugged, that infuriatingly casual shrug. “Some guy with a receding hairline? Looks like every other statue in this museum.”
“That ‘guy’ was Gawain O’Dorchaidhe,” Gwen snapped, her thumb grinding into her ring so hard she felt the metal bite. “He spent three years in the trenches of the Ardennes, using complex sorcery to mask Allied movements. He nearly died defending normie people who didn’t even know he existed. And when he came back, he spent his final years being mocked by the Circle because he believed that Vapours—people like you—deserved the same resources as Inks to stabilize their wild magic. I thought you might show a little respect to some guy who didn’t think he was better because of his blood, but because of what he did with it.”
She leaned in closer, words tumbling out of her in a breathless, agitated, lethal whisper. “Estelle thinks you’re a smudge on the stone because you weren’t born right. Charlotte thinks you’re background noise. But I think you’re ungracious. You have the gall to use a war hero as a backrest while you mock the very structure that keeps you alive. You’re lazy, Holloway. You’re using a better man as a chair because you can’t be bothered to stand on your own.”
The hallway went silent. Gwen expected him to bite back. She wanted him to, so she could hate him again. She needed the fight to feel normal again.
Instead, Will’s expression shifted. The snark vanished. He looked at the bust—really looked—and then back at Gwen.
“I didn’t know,” Will said softly. There was no teasing, only a startling, quiet humility. “I’m still on the 18th-century history chapters.”
Slowly, almost reverently, he pushed himself off the pedestal. He took a full step back, standing tall, his posture suddenly as respectful as a soldier’s at a memorial.
“I’m sorry,” he said, meeting her grey eyes with a sincerity that made her breath catch. “He sounds like someone worth standing up for.”
Gwen’s mouth went dry. She had her insults lined up like a firing squad, but Will had just dropped his weapon and offered her a white flag. She stood there, her finger still against her ring, feeling more exposed by his apology than she ever had by his mockery. It was a deeply unsatisfying win.
Behind her, Estelle and Charlotte were already whispering about how “the Vapour finally learned his place,” but Gwen knew better. Will hadn’t bowed to her status; he’d honoured the merit she valued. For a heartbeat, the status quo she’d fought to regain felt like a flimsy, paper-thin lie.
“Right,” she managed, her voice smaller than she intended, lacking its usual edge. “See that you remember it.”
Will didn’t lean on any other busts for the rest of the day. In fact, as Gwen watched him walk away with Cal, she noticed him give the marble Gawain a brief, solemn nod—a silent acknowledgement of the bridge her ancestor had tried to build.
The knot of anxiety in her stomach didn’t disappear; it shifted, turning into a low, magnetic thrum she couldn’t categorize. She had regained control of the hallway, but as she watched Will disappear around the corner, she realized she was losing control of everything else.
*
The air in the Advanced Arcanum lecture hall was thick with the scent of bitter almond and old parchment, a heavy, academic weight that usually soothed Gwen’s frayed nerves. Today, however, the golden shafts of sunlight filtering through the arched windows felt like spotlights on her exhaustion.
Gwen sat at her mahogany desk, her movements a study in frantic precision. She lined up her leather-bound notebook with the edge of the table three times, her silver signet ring catching the light. Beside her, Sloan was a picture of practised boredom, flicking through her phone with a manicured thumb. Behind them, Charlotte Moreau was a sour silhouette in layered black silks while Estelle perched on the edge of her seat, her golden-hued features tight with a preppy, manicured anxiety as she smoothed her yellow plaid mini-skirt for the tenth time.
“Look at them,” Sloan whispered, gesturing with a tilt of her head toward the right row. “Prospero is going to spend the morning explaining how to tap into ley-lines without melting your brain, just so the Vapours don’t accidentally incinerate their eyebrows.”
“It’s a waste of our time,” Gwen agreed.
“The curriculum is egalitarian rot,” Charlotte drawled, her voice a low, cynical rasp. She didn’t even look at the Vapours; she simply stared at the wall as if their existence were a smudge she couldn’t wipe away. “My Gran says that thirty years ago, a Vapour wouldn’t even be allowed to touch a foundational text. Now we’re expected to dumb down every class so they don’t get left behind.”
“It’s truly exhausting,” Estelle added, her eyes darting to Gwen for a cue. Her voice was bright but brittle—the sound of someone who knew her own status was a borrowed light from Gwen’s shadow. “That Hall girl is always in the library. Like that’s going to help.”
“I avoid the library to avoid Vapours,” Charlotte added. “Thank the Ink the Circle’s collections are private.”
Gwen’s jaw tightened. She watched Will—Holloway, who’d seen her cry, who’d held her flowers, and seen the cracks in the O’Dorchaidhe armour. In the back row, a drowsy Callum Whitley held his head in his hands while Bryn triple-checked her pens. Will Holloway whispered something to Bryn as he set his glasses down on a scratched notebook. Holloway was looking far too comfortable in his faded flannel.
“He’s all raw power and no discipline,” Gwen said, her voice a cool blade, though her heart gave a traitorous thump.
Sloan laughed, a pitying, muffled sound, and patted Gwen’s arm. Gwen hadn’t meant to make her fixation so obvious.
Professor Prospero, a man who looked like he was made of folded linen and silver thread, clapped his hands. The sound echoed sharply.
“Everyone put away your conduits and wands!” he said. “Today, we dive into the deepest archaic acts. Before the invention of anchors—our gems, wands, and focus objects—sorcerers relied on something far more intimate. Cooperation. Today, you will learn why the ancients needed a partner—rather than a stone or wand—to stay tethered.”
A groan rippled through the Ink side of the room. Anchor-less magic was considered messy, primitive, inefficient, and—worst of all—chaotic. The Vapours blinked. Clueless.
“To ensure a lack of… bias,” Prospero continued, pulling a battered, velvet, enchanted hat from his desk, “the partners have been chosen by the luck of the draw!”
Gwen felt a cold drop of dread hit her stomach. Please let it be Sloan. Anyone but—
“Anna Martin, with Sloan Sterling,” Prospero called. Sloan gave Gwen a look of mock horror before sighing and moving toward the Newblood girl.
“Oliver Anderson, with Bryn Hall.”
Gwen almost felt bad for Bryn. Oliver might have more magic in his bloodline, but he was a renowned ne’er-do-well. Gwen suspected a few favours had been exchanged to gain his Cairn-Gait acceptance letter.
“Cal Whitley, with Charlotte Moreau,” the professor announced.
Charlotte didn’t move for a long moment, her dark features contorting into an expression of pure, unadulterated loathing. “I’d rather pair with a hobgoblin,” she muttered, though she stood, her black layers swishing like a threat as she moved toward the frayed Scot boy.
“Elodie Fawley, with Estelle Durand.” Estelle let out a visible puff of relief. The Fawleys were equal in status to the Durands. It was a safe match.
“Gwenhwyfar O’Dorchaidhe,” Prospero said, his dark eyes twinkling with a chaotic, knowing glee, “with William Holloway.”
Gwen’s breath stalled. The universe wasn’t just random; it was calculatedly malicious. Beside her, she heard Estelle’s sharp intake of breath—a tiny gasp of secondhand scandal.
“Oh, Gwen,” Estelle whispered, her eyes wide with a mix of pity and the relief that it wasn’t her. “Everyone will be watching. I don’t envy that kind of pressure—but I’m sure it’s nothing for you.”
Gwen didn’t answer. She couldn’t. She didn’t hear the rest of the pairings. The classroom—a vaulted chamber of soot-stained stone and high, arched windows that leaked a pale, dusty light—seemed to shrink around her. She was an O’Dorchaidhe. She had been groomed for this curriculum since she could speak, her mind a fortress of runic structures and historical precedents. To be paired with a Vapour—a boy whose magical education was essentially a series of lucky accidents—wasn’t just an insult; it was a sabotage of her GPA.
She didn’t move until Will was standing at the edge of her desk. He wasn’t slouching today. He clutched a battered, spiral-bound notebook that looked like it had been salvaged from a washing machine. His green eyes were bright and far too perceptive behind his tortoiseshell glasses.
Will pulled out the chair beside her with a slow, deliberate scrape of wood on stone.
“Don’t touch anything,” Gwen said, her voice a razor-thin edge of Aurelian authority. “We both know I’m the only one of us capable of passing this ridiculous quiz.”
Will sat, but he didn’t look bothered by her bite. If anything, he looked amused. He leaned back, his shoulder brushing against hers—a brief, electric contact. The obsidian fracture climbing over his collarbone drew her eye. Gwen ignored her curiosity—ignored him—with the practised stoicism of a hundred ancestors.
“Nice to see you too, Princess,” Will said, his voice a low, teasing drawl. He glanced at her perfectly organized desk, where her pens were arranged by shade and her books right-angle aligned and protected by leather covers. “I assume you already have a ten-point plan written out in calligraphy for how we’re going to revolutionize anchor-less magic?”
“I have a reputation to maintain, Holloway,” Gwen snapped, uncapping her pen. A cluster of Vapour students approached the row of bookshelves along the sidewall to access research materials. Gwen didn’t need to jog her memory with publicly available tomes. She had a foundation of O’Dorchaidhe lessons to reference.
“I will not have my record dragged into the moors because you don’t know the difference between a Gauls chant and a grocery list,” she said.
But as she spoke, the hunter in her marrow began to stir. She looked at the way he sat—relaxed, yet she could still sense that terrifying, raw potential she’d felt during their spar. If she had to be tethered to him, she wouldn’t just carry him to a passing grade. She would use the proximity to dissect him. She would map the frequency of his resonance, find the feral edges of his discipline, and learn exactly how to overcome his might with her wit.
She began to sketch a diagram from memory—a complex circuit of hand positions and resonance flows. She felt his gaze, heavy and warm, not on the parchment, but on her profile. It was infuriating. It was a distraction she found herself unable to ignore.
“What do you know of the archaic protection spells?” she demanded, trying to reclaim the intellectual high ground. “The Solas summon? The Rowan-cross? Or do you just close your eyes and hope the light does what it’s told?”
Will leaned in closer, and the scent of him—like black coffee flavoured with wood-smoke and stale laundry—overwhelmed the smell of old paper. “The Rowan-what? Look, back home, ‘anchor-less magic’ was what happened when the microwave sparked. I didn’t have a family tree to use as a cheat sheet since I was five.”
Gwen let out a sharp, mocking laugh that hid a spike of genuine frustration. “Typical. You’re like a library with no books, Holloway. Just a dim, empty room waiting for someone to put something useful in it.”
She caught herself retracing the lines of her diagram with obsessive force, only stopped by the familiar nagging want to twist her silver signet ring. She was assessing him, yes, but he was assessing her as well. It was a duel of a different kind.
“Just when I start to think better of you,” he murmured, his voice dropping an octave, vibrating in the small space between them. He reached out, his finger hovering just an inch above the O’Dorchaidhe crest on her notebook cover… then twisting the corner to get a better view of her diagram.
The pulse point of his neck caught her attention. Right where his heart beat strongest, a translucent vein of black quartz pulsed with a faint, rhythmic light of its own.
“I’m starting to wonder if your great-uncle Gawain was the last decent O’Dorchaidhe,” he said, his insult mercifully freeing her from her compulsive stare. “The rest of you seem pretty intent on being gold-plated statues.”
The comparison to Gawain—the outcast relative that was her secret, forbidden inspiration—stung more than any hex.
“Keep my family’s name out of your mouth,” she said coolly. Her platinum hair shimmered in the dusty light as she leaned in. “Gawain was a black sheep because he lowered himself to the level of people who didn’t respect the craft. I am going to be more than him. I’m going to be the greatest sorcerer this school has seen in a century.”
Will’s gaze dropped to her lips for a fraction of a second before returning to her eyes. The teasing smirk didn’t leave his face, but it softened into something more challenging. “You really believe that, don’t you? That if you’re just perfect enough, the world will stop being messy? I kind of envy that.”
Gwen shoved her book open between them, forcing him to flinch back just a smidge, pointing to a diagram of two hands entwined in a magical circuit. “We’re doing the Sol-Fortan Bind. It requires perfect synchronization of resonance. If you slip, the feedback will knock us both unconscious. If I slip… Well, I won’t.”
She looked at him, her eyes hard and defiant, the hunter cornering her prey. “Try to keep up, Vapour. I have a legacy to protect, and I won’t let a clueless American with a spiral notebook be the one to tarnish it.”
Will looked at the diagram, then at her ring-rubbing hand. He didn’t mock her. He just sighed and took off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose. Without the frames, he looked younger, more vulnerable—except for that shattered, obsidian collar that marked him as a target.
“Fine,” he whispered, his voice dangerously close to her ear as he reached for her hand. His movement exposed the full length of his throat, and Gwen could see how the fractal patterns curved around his nape. “Show me how ‘Inks’ do magic, then. I’m all yours, Princess.”
*
The lecture hall’s central floor had been cleared of desks, leaving a wide expanse of cold, unforgiving granite that seemed to drink the light. All around them, the air hummed with the discordant, flickering sparks of students attempting to bridge their magic without the safety of an anchor object—a chorus of clumsy failures that made Gwen’s skin crawl. Magic was a science of the blood, a legacy of ink and effort; it was not a lucky accident to be fumbled with on a Tuesday morning.
Sloan stood a few yards away, her posture a perfect, rigid line as she paired with Anna Martin. She caught Gwen’s eye and mimed a gagging gesture toward Will. Gwen ignored her, though the silent judgment of the Aurelian Circle was a physical weight on her shoulders.
“Both hands,” Gwen commanded. Her voice was thin, brittle as parchment.
Will shoved his battered spiral notebook into his back pocket and stepped closer. Too close. He smelled like the brisk, rainy air of the moors and the cheap, scorched coffee he’d clearly been using to survive his late-night study sessions. It was the scent of a world that didn’t belong in a room this old.
“Is there a specific way to do this?” Will asked. His American accent was a flat stone skipped across the melodic surface of the room. He looked at her with an infuriating, lopsided grin. “Or do we just… hold hands and hope for the best?”
“We don’t hold hands,” Gwen snapped, her eyes narrowing. “We create a circuit. Palm to palm. Thumb folded for volition. Middle finger folded for balance. Our hands are the conduit, the focus. It requires total, unwavering discipline. If you get distracted by anything—your doubt, your fear, your inherent stupidity—the resonance will fracture. And I will not have my record tarnished by your instability.”
Will didn’t move for a heartbeat. He just looked at her, his green eyes searching hers behind the tortoiseshell frames, suddenly stripped of their usual snark. “Discipline. Right. Easy for someone who was born with the map already drawn.”
He reached out. When his hand met hers, Gwen nearly recoiled. His skin was warm—shockingly so—and his palm was calloused, a map of manual labour and unrefined struggle. Yet, it felt more grounded than the granite beneath them. As their fingers interlaced, Gwen felt the first spark. It wasn’t the refined, golden hum she’d spent eighteen years perfecting. It was a jolt of raw, electric heat that shot up her arm and settled in her chest like a live wire.
“You’re already overdoing it—close your eyes,” she whispered, her own snapping shut to block out the sight of his face. “Magic isn’t a performance, Holloway. It’s a cage we build for the power. It demands perfect focus.”
Gwen began the incantation, the archaic Gaelic syllables tasting like copper and salt on her tongue. “Gum bi deagh fhortan ort…”
At first, it was a disaster. Gwen’s magic was a rigid, crystalline lattice—a masterpiece of O’Dorchaidhe control. She tried to force it into Will, to colonize his magic and bend it to her design. But Will wasn’t a stream she could dam. He was an ocean. He was a surge. His power hit her like a tidal wave—unformed, massive, and terrifyingly deep. It threatened to shatter her carefully constructed walls, to drown the Ice Princess in a sea of raw intent. Like his resonance was hunting hers—hungry to swallow everything in its storm.
“You’re… still too much,” Gwen gasped. Her nerves felt electric, her vision blurring with a sickly, straining golden light. “You’re flooding the circuit. Narrow it down!”
“I’m trying.” Will’s voice was taut, his jaw clenched. His glasses were sliding down his nose, but neither of them could move. “It’s like trying to strain a waterfall through a straw, Gwen. Give me something to hold onto!”
“Stop being a sloppy waterfall and focus!” Gwen said, her pride warring with a rising, panicked desperation. Sweat trailed down the back of her neck. “Imagine… sand inside an hourglass. If you pour it all at once, you’ll crack the glass—you’ll crack us. One grain at a time, Will. Steady. Slow. Through the narrow middle. Don’t fight the structure. Just… follow my pace.”
The rest of the class faded into a blur. There was only the heat of his palms and the terrifying realization that her years of taught discipline were failing to contain him. She felt the weight of her signet ring, the frantic, phantom urge to twist it righted, but her hands were locked in his. Her anxiety spiked—a sharp, cold needle in her brain. I’m going to fail. I’m not good enough to hold this.
Suddenly, she felt a shift.
Will didn’t pull away. He didn’t tighten his grip in a way that hurt; he adjusted it, his fingers closing firmly, protectively around hers. He stopped trying to push his power through her straw. Instead, he became a tether. He anchored her—and then, he gently pulled her magic into his.
Through the connection, Gwen felt a wave of calm that wasn’t a spell—it was him. It was steady, brave, and remarkably, infuriatingly kind.
I’ve got you, the feeling seemed to pulse through his skin. Stop trying to be a statue. Just breathe.
Gwen let out a shuddering breath. For the first time in her life, she stopped fighting the current. She allowed her rigid lattice to melt, letting his resilient power carry her weight. Instead of being the cage, she became part of the flow. Her magic joined his, lost in a wild, synchronized motion that no textbook could have described. It was terrifying. It was the most beautiful thing she had ever felt.
The result was a quiet explosion.
The light that dusted their joined hands wasn’t the gold she’d been taught to expect. It was a brilliant, shimmering violet—the haunting colour of the moors when the sun finally dipped below the heather. The glow was steady, humming with a frequency so pure that even Professor Prospero stopped moving, his eyes wide as he drifted toward the O’Dorchaidhe-Holloway pair.
For a long moment, they were suspended in it—the motes of violet light dancing between their chests. Gwen looked up at Will. His glasses had slipped entirely, and his eyes were wide, reflecting the violet glow. In that light, he didn’t look like a clumsy outsider. He looked like the horizon.
The light faded slowly, leaving only a phantom hum in their veins and a lingering warmth where their palms met.
The moment was shattered by the excited applause of the Newbloods and Vapours. None of the purebloods cheered; they watched with a cold, suspicious silence.
Gwen pulled her hands away as if she’d been caught stealing. But Will grinned at her with a lopsided, boyish wonder. Her heart was racing for an entirely new, terrifying reason.
“Well,” Prospero said, his voice thick with uncharacteristic reverence. “That was… an exceptional result. Quite non-traditional. I suspect I won’t need to read the report to award full marks to Mr. Holloway and Miss O’Dorchaidhe.”
Cal, Bryn, and a handful of excited Vapours crowded around Will to congratulate him. He lingered in the centre of everything, nodding absently to every compliment, rubbing his palms together as if trying to hold onto the sensation.
Gwen’s back prickled with icy stares as her own cohort slid closer.
“Gwen,” Sloan whispered, her voice tight with a sharp, calculating concern. She reached out, gripping Gwen’s elbow with bruising strength, pulling her a few steps away from the Vapour crowd. “That was… Everyone was watching.”
“It was humiliating,” Charlotte said, a whispered hiss as she approached. Her dark features were twisted into a mask of pure disgust, her black, layered silks rustling like a crow’s wings. “You let him match you? You shouldn’t have held back. Even for a passing mark.”
Estelle’s golden glow drained into a clammy pale, raw with a trembling horror. She clutched the Ouroboros pin she’d attached to a gold chain hanging low over her organza blouse. Her eyes darted from Will back to Gwen as if the world’s physics had just been rewritten. “Now they’ll all think they can do it,” she said, her voice high and thin.
Gwen retreated to her mahogany desk, her movements jerky and uncoordinated. She shed her jacket to relieve some of the heat, then opened her notebook, but her pen hovered, immobile. She wasn’t sure she could put the wildness of that feeling into words. Her resonance hummed with recognition and a desire to be wild again as his warmth poured in behind her.
“That wasn’t… that wasn’t sloppy, was it?” Will asked, his voice low over her shoulder.
Gwen wanted to bite back. She felt the searing heat of Sloan’s stare and Charlotte’s cynical judgment. She needed to reclaim her superiority. But she could still feel the phantom pressure of his fingers grounding her. Her own magic had never felt so free.
“It was adequate,” she said, her voice shaking as she stared at the blank page of her notebook. She adjusted her silk headband and slid into her seat—an excuse to add distance. “But don’t let it go to your head, Holloway. You’re still a layabout. One decent spell doesn’t mean you know the first thing about real sorcery.”
Will let out a short, surprised laugh—bright and real. “Adequate. I’ll take it.” He pulled his dog-eared notebook out of his back pocket and stepped toward her desk, leaning down so only she could hear him. “I think we have a report to write, Princess. Unless you want me to describe the ‘vibe’ of your magic in my own words?”
Gwen didn’t answer, but as she sat down to write, she realized she hadn’t rubbed her ring once since he’d taken her hand.