Chapter 5
Lyra
“OUCH!” I HISS, TRYING TO pull my hand away from Maeve, but she holds fast, her storm-purple eyes cutting to me like a bolt of lightning. “That hurts.”
“Well, it’s going to continue to hurt if you don’t let us help you,” Maeve says. Her voice is crisp and matter-of-fact, leaving no room for my whimpering.
I’m cross-legged on one of the couches in our sitting area, Maeve on one side of me and Poppy on the other. They take turns dipping their fingertips into a small jar of salve that Alina made for me when I returned to the dormitory yesterday and showed them the angry blisters decorating my palms.
“These look so painful,” Poppy says. She pushes her big round glasses up with a knuckle, a dainty furrow appearing in her brow. “Mr. Axton should’ve made sure you had the proper protective gear.”
“Protective gear?” Maeve asks with an arched brow. “You mean gloves?” She chuckles to herself. “It’s not like Lyra was tasked with wrangling a centaur or something.”
Poppy’s furrow deepens as she gently applies more salve to a particularly large and painful blister. “Even so . . . It’s rather inconsiderate.”
I could just not tell them that the minotaur did, in fact, offer me the proper protective gear, as Poppy so succinctly put it. But I’ve never been one for fibs—unless they’re meant in good fun.
“Well . . .” I draw the word out slowly, and everyone in the room looks at me, including Alina and Raelan, who’re cozied up together on the other couch in the sitting room. I’m not sure how it’s possible, but those two are more inseparable now than they were last year.
“Well what?” Maeve asks. She’s finished applying the salve and is reaching for a bandage now.
“Well . . . he did offer me gloves. I turned them down.”
“Why?” Poppy asks.
I shrug one shoulder—the one Juniper isn’t currently clinging to, hiding under my curls to keep warm.
Early this afternoon, the sky turned a dark shade of gray and rain started to fall.
The fire is burning, chasing the chill from our room, but with my fire magic, I put off plenty of heat, and Juniper likes to curl up and nap when it gets cold like this.
“I don’t know,” I say, and it’s mostly true. “I guess I didn’t want him to think I needed them, like I’m weak or something.”
My mind replays yesterday afternoon, watching Mr. Axton push and dump the wheelbarrow with what appeared to be no effort, how he wielded the compost fork like a magic spell.
I, on the other hand, struggled all day, and with such a simple task too.
He gave me one thing to do, and I couldn’t even complete it.
“Ow!” I snap when Maeve wraps the soft cotton bandage across my palm. “What are you, an orc?”
She rolls her eyes. “No, that’d be my stepbrother, remember?”
Oh, that’s right. Aric, I think. The runeball player. I wish I were at a runeball game right now instead of here, with my palms blistered and everyone looking at me like I did something wrong.
“You’ve got too much pride, Lyra,” Maeve says, though her fingers work at the bandage more carefully now, expertly wrapping the cotton until she can deftly tuck the end into itself to hold the material snug.
When she’s done, she flops an arm over the back of the couch and tips her head at me, her glossy dark purple hair catching the firelight.
“Everyone knows minotaurs are built like mountains. It’s not like he expected you to be indestructible. ”
“No,” I scoff. “Just to cause destruction.”
There’s an extended moment of quiet as Poppy finishes with my other hand.
My words hang there in the firelit dorm room, refusing to disperse.
But they all know it’s true. They’ve all seen what my fire can do—what I can do—when I’m not careful.
It’s what got me into this whole community service mess in the first place.
“And do you care what he thinks?” Alina asks. Her tone holds a twinge of playfulness, and I quickly cut my gaze to her.
Raelan has one arm draped across her shoulders, and he traces shapes onto her palm with his other hand. I wrinkle my nose at them.
“No,” I snap. “Of course not. He barely speaks, he’s cold as Norwyth, and I swear, every time he looks at me, I can feel how annoyed he is that he has to put up with me.” A second later, I grumble beneath my breath, “That makes two of us.”
Beside me, Poppy wipes her hands off on a plum-colored rag, then twists the lid onto the salve jar.
“Maybe he’s just lonely. He lives all by himself out there, and I barely see him around.
” She leans forward to grab her teacup from the low table, then tips her head to one side thoughtfully.
“Maybe he just needs to warm up to you.”
Raelan lets out a low laugh. We all look at him.
“Have something you’d like to add, dragon?” I cross my arms and cant my head.
When Alina told us the truth about what Raelan Ashvale is—one of the rare remaining dragon shifters—I somehow wasn’t surprised. I knew all along he looked at her like she was a slice of apple pie he wanted to sink his teeth into.
“Warm up to you?” His lips pull up on one side. “You should be good at helping him with that. You know, uncontrolled flames and all.”
“Ha, ha. The knight thinks he’s funny now.
” The girls titter and smile as I uncross my legs and push to my feet.
My movement wakes Juniper, and she shifts on my shoulder, her sharp little claws clinging to the fabric of my fluffy sweater.
“I think I preferred when you were all stoic and grouchy,” I add.
Raelan doesn’t rise to my bait, just gives me another small smirk before tracing the shell of Alina’s ear with his nose and whispering something to her that makes her cheeks go pink.
Those two make me want to be ill.
But in a good way. Because of course I’m happy for her. I held her more than once last year while she cried over him, but now that she bears his claiming mark, I’ve yet to see her shed a tear because of Raelan Ashvale.
“I’m going on a walk,” I announce. “And thanks for the help,” I call back to Maeve and Poppy.
Then I shove my feet into a pair of plush boots—the kind I don’t dare wear outside for fear of getting a speck of mud on them—and slip out of our dorm room and into the spiraling staircase outside our door.
As soon as I close the door behind me and breathe in a lungful of the chill castle air, I feel better, or at least less cooped up. I don’t do well in tight spaces for long. Or maybe in any one place for long.
I start down the stairs, my soft-soled boots swishing across each stone step as I descend from the north tower.
Another student in a wheelchair says hello as they float past, using air magic to hover up the spiraling corridor.
The stained glass windows along the stairwell let in thin gray light, but it seems as though another storm is rolling in, if the darkening shadows are any indication.
Making it to the bottom of the stairs, I set off through the castle halls, letting my feet carry me wherever they want to go.
Despite it being the weekend, the castle is quiet.
When the weather is nice, many students flock outside, wanting to soak up the sun and sprawl in the grass in the expansive courtyard, boots off and toes bare.
But on rainy days like this—seems like it rains on most days during the autumn—many students retreat to their dorm rooms or take up spots near the big fires roaring in the library or dining hall.
I only pass a few other students as I drift along.
Two of them are still slightly damp, so they must’ve gotten caught in the first leg of the storm on their way back to the castle—from Wysteria, perhaps.
“Where are we going?” Juniper asks from her spot on my shoulder.
“You awake now?”
In response, she yawns.
“Don’t know. Just walking.”
“Well, can we make a detour to the dining hall?” She sniffs the air, her whiskers tickling my earlobe and making me giggle. “I smell cinnamon.”
Per her request, I turn my feet in the direction of the dining hall.
It’s not quite time for dinner, even if the darkness from the storm is trying to trick me into thinking so.
But throughout the day, students can swing by the dining hall and pick up snacks between classes or to tide them over until dinnertime.
I must be one lucky witch, because I step into the candlelit room just as one of the cooks is setting out a fresh platter of steaming cinnamon-sugar muffins.
My mouth waters at the sight of them.
“Fresh out of the oven,” he says. “Don’t burn yourself.”
Burn myself. That’s funny. Fire never bites me—it just bites everyone and everything around me.
“Thanks.” I snag the biggest muffin on the tray, then rip off a chunk and blow on it until it’s cool. “Here.” I lift the fluffy morsel up for Juniper, and she shifts her weight on my shoulder so she can take it with her front paws.
With her pleasantly nibbling in my ear, I take my own bite of the muffin, then resume my wandering.
The halls are darker now, and distant thunder rumbles low and deep.
And I suddenly know where I’m headed: my secret little alcove in the east wing, with the big window with the view of the Mistwood.
I head in that direction as rain starts to fall. It runs in thick rivulets down the windows I pass.
Suddenly, unbidden, voices start whispering in my head, echoing what I’ve been told recently.
You’ve got too much pride.
Your fire is erratic, not under your control.
As if in response to the reminder of how out of control I am, the blisters on my palms sting beneath the soft cotton bandages. My chest feels tight.
I know! I want to yell at them. I’m aware of my problems—have been for a long time. I don’t need reminders.
Taking a bite of muffin, I chew aggressively, trying to shove the voices down.
But they refuse to leave. They’re always there, lingering in the recesses of my mind, waiting to come out when I least want them to.
And now is definitely one of those moments.
They continue to whisper, taking on what I imagine is the voice of my mother. Not that I’d know what her voice actually sounds like. She left much too long ago for me to remember such a thing.
I turn down hallway after hallway, only passing a few students and faculty along the way—no one who wants to talk, thankfully, because I’m really not in the mood.
Finally, I make it to the narrow stairwell that leads up to where my nook is on the third floor.
“Another bite?” Juniper says.
I’ve already demolished half the muffin. Ripping another chunk of fluffy goodness off, I hand it up into her little paws and start climbing the stairs. The shadows feel deeper here, the air colder. But it feels good, like maybe it can help soften the fire burning just beneath my skin.
On my way up, the soft toe of my boot stubs on a step, and I let out a yelp and stumble forward. Juniper squeaks and drops her bite of muffin, grasping a lock of my curly hair with her paws.
“Shit!” That fire that I hoped might be calmed flares hot and bright. My blisters sting.
With a heavy sigh, I sink onto one of the stairs and lean my head against the smooth wooden banister running alongside the stairwell.
“You okay?” I reach for Juniper, and she lets me draw my fingers across her head and down her back.
“I’m fine. You?”
“Eh.” I wiggle my toes in my boot and wince at the throb. “I’ll be okay. Not broken.”
With finesse, Juniper crawls down my sweater, then settles herself in my lap—where I’m holding the muffin.
As she begins nibbling away, humming contentedly to herself, I take note of the intricate vines etched along the side of the wooden banister.
I’m certain I’ve climbed these stairs a hundred times, but I’ve never noticed this little detail before.
The vines are hidden just beneath the lip of the handrail, so you have to really look to see them.
But despite their being mostly hidden, someone took the time to put them there, and to do it right.
I lift a hand and skate my fingers across the beautiful carvings. And then a new voice joins the others in my mind. But this one is warm, loving.
Good woodwork is quiet, but it lasts. It matters.
Papa’s voice is smooth and rumbly, soft with no hard edges.
I call to mind the many times I sat with him in his woodshop, watching him measure and cut and sand with practiced grace.
When the sun would stream through the little dusty window, the air would come alive with swirling sawdust, and it’s always reminded me of magic.
His own kind of magic—not like the fire magic that burns through my veins.
That’s from her.
You don’t have to be perfect, Papa told me the evening before I left for my second year here at Coven Crest. Just show them who you are, what you’re made of. He smiled at me, eyes lined and tired, but still happy. And then he said, I already know.
I press my hand flat against the intricate carved vines. My throat feels like it wants to clog up with emotion.
Papa has worked hard my whole life. Raising me alone, he did everything he could to give me the best and most comfortable life possible.
And when I told him I wanted to attend the academy, he started quietly working that much harder, saving up for my books and travel and everything else I need to be a student here.
Yet here I am, slumped in a lonely stairwell, on the verge of being expelled, of losing everything I’ve—he’s—worked so hard for.
I picture the letter from him sitting in my nightstand beside my bed. I’ve not been able to bring myself to write back, to tell him about the fire in the greenhouse, the community service, the stoic minotaur who’s been saddled with me.
I don’t have the heart to tell him that I’m one erratic flame away from failing. It’d break me. And him.
He’s always believed in me, I think, feeling tears well up along my eyelids, thick as the rain still running down the small high windows. But what if he’s wrong?