Chapter VIII. Ellery #2
“Except you’re not. You just keep pushing me away. And maybe you’re fine pretending otherwise, but I want to fix whatever’s going on with you.”
But she was no hangover or headache, easily mended by a training wand or a tender word. Ellery squeezed the alban pit so hard, it stabbed into her palm.
“It was never about us,” she murmured, then rubbed at her eyes. “So please. Leave this alone.”
Julian sighed in surrender and turned away from her. “If that’s what you want.”
Ellery watched miserably as candidate number five filed out. Only three people remained between her and Valmordion.
A scream rang out from beyond the wall, followed by muffled commotion. Several students lurched to their feet; others stiffened. Ellery thought anxiously of the fifth candidate—a nineteen-year-old who’d smuggled wine into last year’s Winter solstice party.
Glynn returned, ash dusting his jacket. “Do not be alarmed,” he said, sounding harried. “I’ll return for the next candidate as soon as possible.”
“What happened to her?” Ellery demanded. “Is she all right?”
Glynn didn’t make eye contact. “She’ll be fine.”
He slipped away before anyone could get another question out. But the mood in the room had changed. Ellery’s classmates fretted to their neighbors. Some fiddled with their clothes or hair.
Candidate six left the room, but when no sound came from beyond the walls, the room’s tension began to subside.
At last, it was Julian’s turn. Once he rose, he spun around and studied her. The last five years hung between them, and Ellery felt something crack, then crumble, as the moments ticked by, as the right words didn’t come.
Ellery bowed her head, defeated, as he disappeared into the vigil chamber.
She tried to focus on what it would mean if Valmordion Chose Julian. He could be an excellent hero. And selfishly, if he bonded with Valmordion, it would mean she hadn’t.
A gigantic burst of heat exploded from the vigil chamber. Smoke billowed beneath the door. Then it flung open, crashing wildly into the wall.
Julian stood at the threshold, screaming and coated in flames.
Ellery cried out as he collapsed. She leapt up and reached for her training wand, but it wasn’t there.
She couldn’t help him.
People shrieked and scattered, overturning chairs as they stampeded for the exit. A dark haze suffocated the room, rendering students into silhouettes. Healers charged through the smoke.
“Everyone out!” one of them hollered. But Ellery froze. She couldn’t leave him.
Two healers knelt beside Julian as he thrashed upon the ground, flames still flaring across his clothes.
He wailed, the sound so raw he scarcely sounded human.
Healing magic surrounded him, a golden, shimmering mist that hovered over his skin.
But even as his burns closed, the flames smoldered as fiercely as ever.
“Why haven’t you put the flames out?” a healer snapped at her nearby colleague.
“I can’t,” he hissed back.
Horror surged in Ellery as Julian clawed at his face with blistered fingers.
Glynn rushed up beside her, panting. “Ellery! Get out! Go!”
But it didn’t matter that Valmordion’s magic was greater than any Ellery had ever felt. That these magicians had Living Wands and she didn’t.
Her fear dulled, replaced by something else, something stronger.
“The training wands,” she gasped. “Give them to me.”
Glynn hesitated, then pulled them from his jacket. She snatched them and lunged toward Julian.
Healers shouted protests, but she ignored them as she crouched beside her best friend.
One of his eyes was swollen shut; the corner of his lip had ripped away, revealing bloodied teeth and jaw.
The fabric of his academy uniform was melded gruesomely into his flesh.
The heat was nearly unbearable, as was the smell, hot and thick as tar.
His wand hand, the hand that had grasped Valmordion, was charred nearly to the bone. Ellery forced her nausea down.
“It’s me,” she choked, unsure if he could hear her. Tears trailed down her face; her eyes stung from the fumes. “I’ll fix this. I-I’ll try.”
She summoned a torrent of water to douse the flames. But almost immediately, it hissed into steam. Her first training wand splintered, yet she grasped the second, undeterred.
Memories flashed in her: time after time when Julian had healed her. Paper cuts and bruises. A sprained ankle. His hand on her wrist as he traced his wand along her lifeline.
Ellery poured everything she’d been unable to say into her spell. He’d always wanted more from her than she could give. But she could give Julian her magic now, as much as she could manage.
Until at last, the flames dimmed, then sputtered out. Ellery dropped the fragments of her final training wand and stared at Julian, stunned. Someone seized her shoulder, and she turned, panting.
“How did you…?” The Order healer gawked. “Never mind. We’ll take it from here.”
Ellery shrank away as the healers closed ranks again. Their golden mist shimmered, thicker than before. Julian’s screams faded as he lapsed into unconsciousness.
The adrenaline that had carried Ellery this far ebbed, replaced by a numb exhaustion. Glynn reappeared and took her gently by the arm. He spoke, but she couldn’t make out his words. She let him lead her to a chair.
Time passed. Ellery didn’t know how much. The others hauled Julian out on a stretcher, still cocooned in light.
Ellery wanted to go with him, but Glynn softly dissuaded her. He helped other magicians repair the damage done to the room. Someone conjured an artificial scent to drown out the smoke. It didn’t do much. Finally, one of the healers returned, then murmured something to Glynn.
“Norwood is stable,” he told Ellery. “They cannot promise a full recovery. It’s too soon for that.”
“B-but he’ll make it?”
“He’ll make it.”
Relief lanced through Ellery’s shock. Tears trickled down her cheeks.
“We’ve told the other students to leave if they wish,” Glynn continued. “We won’t force anyone to forfeit their life for Valmordion. I know after everything I’ve put on you, you might feel as though you have no other choice. But you do. Of course you do.”
You should be going for that wand before me, Julian had said. Hell, you should be going before everyone.
“I won’t run,” Ellery said vehemently.
“I thought you might say that.” Glynn sounded proud, yet there was a tinge of mournfulness to his words.
Gradually, students returned, solemn as attendees at a funeral. Around a third didn’t return at all.
Demelza was among those who did, alongside the other Order favorites. Barrow slipped in last and slouched low in his seat. Other students seemed surprised that he’d come back, but Ellery wasn’t surprised at all.
Ellery walked to the front of the waiting room. Her hair was frizzed. She smelled of death and charred flesh. People gaped at her soot-stained clothes, but she scarcely cared. She pushed the door open.
It was her turn.
The vigil chamber was located deep within the belly of the Citadel, adjacent to the Vault.
Its high, arched ceilings had been fortified, and its tiled floor and drains made for easy clean-up should a magician’s attempt to claim a wand go brutally astray.
Ellery had entered it eleven times before, and on each occasion, the rows of observation benches—all shielded behind enchanted glass—had been virtually empty save for the vigil’s proctor.
Today, every important magician she could name was packed inside. So were members of Parliament and industry bigwigs. The Prime Minister herself sat front and center.
The chamber was swelteringly humid. Scorch marks marred the floor, and crimson pooled around the drain. The rank of ash permeated the air.
All because of the infamous, legendary Living Wand atop the pedestal in the room’s center.
What struck Ellery first was its ugliness. The white alban wood had never been less appealing to her. Below the wand’s handle, roots hung limply like clumps of burned hair, its thorns bloodied from the candidates before her.
She reached for it without hesitation.
Immediately, she was struck by a sense of wrongness. The thorns bit into her palm, and heat flared up her arm and through her chest, toward her heart. She staggered backward, trying frantically to uncurl her hand from the hilt. But she couldn’t.
A terror coursed through her unlike anything she’d ever known, alongside the absolute certainty that Valmordion would not let her leave this room alive.
And then her magic steeled itself, frost hardening in her veins, in her blood. A furious slice of cold against Valmordion’s unceasing heat. Her grip loosened—just enough to free her.
Ellery Caldwell screamed, and dropped the wand, and ran.