Chapter VI. Ellery
VI
ELLERY
SUMMER
The night after Ellery fought the winterghast, she dreamed of a memory.
An alban tree.
Not the alban in the Citadel grove—the one in Nordmere.
As a child, she’d climbed often in its bone-white branches, high enough for the wind to tousle her hair and sting her face.
High enough that when she closed her eyes, she could pretend she’d escaped her hometown, that she belonged somewhere, anywhere else.
It was no wonder, then, that this alban tree was where she first did magic.
Ellery had just turned seven, and the world was buried beneath a quilt of snow, the air clear and quiet.
When she grasped the lowest branch, silver crept from her fingertips across the trunk, then froze into a shimmering coat of ice.
Then the canopy bloomed, flowers unfurling, until a perfect silver plum appeared.
Alban trees did not bear fruit.
Ellery ate it greedily, triumphantly. Juice dribbled down her chin, until only a diamond-shaped pit remained. Even in the dream she remembered the taste of its flesh, tart and crisp.
She’d done magic. She was magic. And magic was wonderful.
Then, as always, a different memory invaded.
The snow rumbled, cracking beneath her feet. The gentle flakes whipped into a terrifying barrage. And a winterghast advanced upon her. In the glassy sheen of its ice, she saw her own reflection. Her eyes gleamed a glacial blue.
Ellery woke in a cold sweat to the weak sunrise spilling into her dorm room.
She fumbled through her nightstand drawer, pushing aside spare training wands and magazines until she found the alban pit.
It was her only memento from childhood. A stubborn reminder of those simple, early days where she’d loved her magic.
Ellery clutched the pit tightly. She tried to draw comfort from the familiar clippings of fashion ads and movie posters adorning the walls, the photographs tacked to the corkboard above her desk. But panic pinned her to her mattress, her breaths sharp and fast.
Something tapped her shoulder. Ellery yelped and jolted up. But it was only an enchanted envelope, flitting impatiently through the air like a bird.
Ellery tucked the pit into her satin pajama pocket and snatched the envelope. It bore no name or address, but the thick, rich paper and wax seal of an alban tree signified that it came from an Order magician.
She tore it open.
Seven o’clock sharp. My office. We have much to discuss.
It wasn’t signed. It didn’t need to be.
Ellery grimaced and crumpled it into a ball.
Edgar Glynn’s office had belonged to generation after generation of the Order’s Directors of Education and Recruitment, each determined to make their mark.
The resulting space had become a cornucopia of enchantment magic.
A bespelled record player crooned the latest stylings of the Gallamere Philharmonic Orchestra.
Paintings offered small windows into other parts of the country, sunlight dancing off the Portmere coast, clouds shifting above the dense forests outside Danmere.
An Aldrish flag hung in the corner, rippling in an imaginary breeze.
And a special calendar, a twin to the one in the student lounge, kept meticulous track of upcoming vigils.
“Ah, you’re finally here.” Glynn peered up from a pile of paperwork, sounding harried.
Ellery glanced at the clock—she was early.
Frowning, she sank into the familiar leather seat across from his desk.
He was surrounded by newspaper clippings and dusty books, along with three mugs of tea: two empty, and one long since gone cold.
She could barely make out the photograph of Glynn, his husband, and their toddler amid the mess.
“Did you sleep?” she asked him.
He waved dismissively. “I’ll get around to it. Did you?”
Ellery grimaced. “I tried.”
“I gave you as much time as I could, but I’m afraid I can’t hold off any longer. We need to talk about Mercester Square.”
He reached for his wand Aetherium and waved it. Dust flecked off its simple oak tip, and the piles atop his desk shuffled until a crisp copy of the Gallamere Gazette emerged.
UNSEASONAL WINTERGHAST DEFEATED BY ORDER TRAINEES
Ellery had known this was coming, but that didn’t make the words any easier to read. “The whole city must be terrified.”
“The Council was up all night ensuring otherwise. Seong has an address planned for Parliament, as well as a public statement promising everyone that this was a terrible fluke. What matters most is that no one was hurt, and everyone’s safe now. And, Ellery … it’s all thanks to you.”
It was unusual for an administrator to call a pupil by their first name.
But Ellery’s relationship with Glynn had always been unusual.
When they met, her name was splashed across every headline: the tragic heroine orphaned in Winter’s conquest of the fallen territory.
Glynn had expected a prodigy who’d slain a winterghast. Instead he found a thirteen-year-old terrified of her own magic.
In more affluent parts of Alderland, all children were tested for magical aptitude. The most talented were fed into a network of prestigious public schools, where they trained for the Citadel’s famously difficult entrance exam.
But Ellery had grown up in the rural North, where limited resources meant that few ascended beyond the ranks of hedge magicians. Many fell through the cracks. And Ellery hadn’t just fallen—she’d plummeted. Her parents forbid her from being tested for magic. No one ever questioned them.
Yet Glynn, intrigued by her potential, designed her a custom curriculum, intending to train her for a year before she caught up to her peers.
She finished three months later.
Ellery cared for Glynn deeply—she owed everything to him. But he expected more from her than anyone.
“Thank you,” she said anxiously, setting down the Gazette. “But I didn’t fight that monster alone. Barrow and I did it together.”
“Right, right, Seong said as much, and of course we’re all happy he rose to the occasion. But given your history, I imagine you took the lead.”
An unexpected defensiveness flared in her. “Barrow struck the killing blow. He’s not who I thought he was.”
Ellery had seen plenty of girls indulge in Barrow as a distraction, but he hadn’t drowned the world out—instead, for a few hours, he’d made her feel less alone in it.
He’d also seen her bolt after they slayed the winterghast. Ellery tried not to dwell on it.
“Perhaps I’ve misjudged his capabilities.
Regardless, you and Barrow prevented a terrible tragedy at the heart of the country.
And yet…” Glynn leaned forward intently.
The Gallamere Philharmonic Orchestra played on, its steady beat pounding into Ellery’s skull.
“I still haven’t received your application for Valmordion’s candidacy. ”
On some level, Ellery had expected this.
Of course she had. The deadline was tomorrow.
Everyone else at the academy was all too eager to vie for the grandest of destinies, even Julian, who’d scoffed at the would-be NDC members just days ago.
She’d hoped her own lack of an application would be eclipsed by the glare of her peers’ ambitions.
How silly that hope had been.
“No, you haven’t,” she said. “Because I’m not applying.”
“What? Why?”
“It’s not the right wand for me. I know it. And I’m not going to change my mind.”
Glynn’s glasses magnified the concern in his eyes.
“I hope you don’t mean that. Because in light of the unseasonal winterghast attack, the Council’s made a decision.
It’ll be announced later this morning, but I wanted you to hear it from me first: Valmordion’s vigil will be held on the final day of Summer, in one week. And it is now mandatory.”
Ellery’s heartbeat stuttered out of time with the music’s rising, swelling strings. “But I-I can’t, Glynn. I can’t.”
“Why not?” He rose from his seat, his gaze a spotlight that seemed to sear her skin. “The country needs you to step up. You could be our Chosen One. The hero we—”
“It happened again.”
Glynn blanched, then flicked Aetherium. The music cut off with an abrupt scratch.
“What, exactly, are you saying?” he asked carefully.
Her parents’ voices echoed through her mind, their words overlapping through a hundred anguished memories.
Monster, they snarled.
“The things I told you when you first started training me. From before I was at the Order. When I fought that winterghast, its magic felt…” like mine. She sniffled. “I-I can’t go near Valmordion. I can’t risk it. Maybe I shouldn’t even be at the academy at all.”
She stared fixedly at her lap. Silence stretched on, until she felt Glynn’s hand on her shoulder. He’d rounded his desk and crouched beside her. He held out a tissue. She took it with a trembling hand.
“Oh, Ellery. I apologize. I should’ve foreseen this potential complication. It makes sense that being confronted with a winterghast would reopen your old wounds.” He regarded her gently. “However, it would be a terrible waste if you let fear break you after you’ve come so far.”
Yet despite what Glynn thought he knew of her fear, no one had ever seen the heart of it. Ellery might’ve no longer borne external marks of her childhood. But her feelings, her thoughts, even her dreams were threaded with scar tissue.
“May I show you something?” Glynn continued.
Ellery nodded numbly. Glynn rose and pointed Aetherium at the papers on his desk.
Glynn’s relationship with Aetherium was proof that when it came to Living Wands, power wasn’t everything.
Aetherium was a relatively minor enchantment wand, but Glynn had climbed higher in the Order’s ranks than anyone had anticipated.
Since Aetherium was connected to the enchantments woven within the Citadel, he used it primarily as an administrative assistant, keeping track of student files, wand histories, and recruitment efforts.
A map fluttered to the giant window, then plastered across it.
The Gallamere skyline disappeared, replaced by a bird’s-eye view of Alderland.
The island nation was largely isolated from the rest of the world, a world Ellery would likely never see.
For an Order magician, there was simply no point.
Living Wands didn’t function past the Aldrish border; although other nations had magicians of their own, they relied on other methods for their spellwork.
A marker for each of the alban trees glimmered gold, scattered across the country like fallen stars.
“The Order’s most important task is to keep Alderland safe,” Glynn said. “Yet Winter worsens every year.”
The map changed as he spoke. Color leached from the country’s northernmost tip, leaving an entire region of alban trees grayed out.
Ellery’s gaze fixed on one of the cities within the region, labeled NORDMERE. A shiver crept down her spine.
Six years ago, Winter had conquered the North, now known as the fallen territory.
Within it, the long Summer most of Alderland enjoyed was gone.
Instead the land was plagued with endless Winter unlike any endured in centuries—since the single cataclysm a Chosen One had failed to thwart, known as the Thirty Years’ Chill.
The only people who remained in the fallen territory were too stubborn to leave, clinging to a homeland that no longer existed.
“There are rumors that winterghasts are evolving,” Glynn went on. “A select few seem to be capable of executing coordinated attacks.”
Ellery stiffened, disturbed. “I thought winterghasts were mindless monsters.”
“Not anymore. And we fear that ghast in Gallamere may be just the beginning of their larger strategy.” He flicked Aetherium, and the map zoomed in on Gallamere. There was a gap at the city’s edge that she’d never noticed before. It wasn’t gold or grayed out. It was white. Blank.
“What is that?” she asked.
“There is a second alban tree within the Gallamere city limits.”
“Why don’t I know about it?”
“Because for generations, the Council has kept it a secret. The tree is dead.”
“There’s fallen territory inside Gallamere?”
“No, not fallen. Destroyed. The alban has been sapped of life, and the land around it is a grave. We call it the Barren because nothing grows there, and even our finest nature magicians can’t heal it. Even Valmordion’s past wielders failed to restore it.”
“B-but there’s nothing stronger than Valmordion.”
“Not even Valmordion can bring back the dead, I’m afraid.
” Glynn flicked his wand, and the map rolled up again, revealing the Gallamere skyline once more.
“But the trees in the fallen territories aren’t dead.
Not yet, anyway. And as long as they endure, we believe Valmordion’s next wielder can find a way to bring them back to Summer. To make Alderland whole again.”
All at once, Ellery understood.
“You really think it could be me, don’t you?” Her voice quavered. “Th-the Chosen One.”
“I do,” he said solemnly. “I know you don’t like to speak of destiny. But now that Valmordion has thawed, even you must admit that if anyone is meant to wield it, it would be the very student who’s already lauded as one of the heroes of Nordmere.”
“I…” Ellery didn’t know how to finish. She didn’t know what she believed.
“The way I see it, if you’re not meant for Valmordion, it won’t Choose you. But if you are, running from your destiny will only draw out this war. So tell me, Ellery. What will you choose?”