Chapter 22. Eloise
Eloise
The moment I say goodbye to Maggie after class, Grayson’s there.
“Look—” Grayson starts, but I cut him off.
“Don’t you dare,” I say in warning, because I’m embarrassed and frustrated. And the last thing I want is to fight with him in the middle of the hallway and start yet another rumor. I pick up my pace.
“Be angry all you want, but you’d have broken something or stabbed yourself with that dagger,” he says with zero remorse.
“Which is absolutely none of your business,” I reply with a huff.
“Right now, you are my business. The entirety of it,” he says.
“Stop following me around, Grayson Stone!” I whisper-yell at him. “And if you ever interfere with one of my fights again, I’m going to fight you.”
His eyebrows shoot up. “If you don’t want me to interfere, don’t put your life in danger.”
“I was holding my own!” I reply, one inch from exploding.
While there is a little part of me that sighed in relief when I landed on his cushioned spell, the larger part was humiliated.
“I’m a damn good fighter. That has always been my thing, and you just made me look like a complete fool in front of the entire class and the head Guardian.
” I don’t mention that Akari’s opinion means more to me than anyone’s, because that, too, is none of his business.
For a hair of a second, he hesitates like I surprised him, but whatever thought he has, he dismisses it. “If you smashed yourself on that floor, it wouldn’t matter how good of a fighter you are, you’d have wasted a day in the healers’ hut.”
“And now we’ll spend the evening being punished. Remind me how that’s better?” I ask.
“Less hours,” he replies.
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head. “You know, I actually thought for a second that you stopped Naomi from casting that spell this morning because, for better or worse, we’re in this together. Clearly, I was wrong.”
“I’m not following.”
“Of course you’re not. I’m a person, Grayson, not just a way for you to get what you want.
You stopped Naomi from casting. You cushioned my fall, not because Naomi was being a jerk or because you wanted to spare me pain—something I might understand.
But because you need me in full working order to cast spells.
I don’t need you to like me or even to be my friend.
But damn, I won’t be treated like I have no other purpose than to serve you. ”
His brow furrows just as someone whispers my name in a nearby conversation. Great. More gossip.
“Forget it,” I say. “You’ve never had to fight to be good enough. You’ve never had people look down on you just because—” I don’t finish my sentence because now I’m saying things I never meant to.
For a second he looks taken aback, like he never considered it that way. And of course he hasn’t. His life is one big shiny golden ball. “Eloise, I—”
“I’m not doing this with you here,” I say, walking toward my next class. Or rather, our next class, because as Grayson already pointed out, we have the exact same schedule.
Two girls pass, and the one whose name I think is Willow whispers to the other: “Naomi told me she’s from a family of Laborers. There’s no way he’d be interested in her.”
That’s it, the final straw.
But before I can race away, humiliated, Willow trips and the bag she’s carrying dumps on the floor. In my peripheral vision, I glimpse Grayson lowering his hand like he just cast. He wouldn’t … would he?
“Eloise, wait,” Grayson says, but I don’t respond.
Which is when he grabs my wrist. Before I even consider it, I Alchemy a wooden dagger as I whip around, holding it between us.
He doesn’t flinch. “Give this back to me when you’re done with it,” he says, pressing a small tin into my hand.
I peer down at my palm and the label reads Green Goddess—a stupidly expensive healing salve that costs more than an entire month of groceries for my family. One that takes away pain almost instantly.
My brow furrows and I drag my teeth over my bottom lip. “My foot is fine,” I say with less oomph, lowering my dagger.
“You’re limping. Just take it,” he says. “Please.”
Why does he make it so hard—arrogant and bossy in one moment and decent in the next?
I push open the door to Alchemy Puzzles 101 and stop short.
It’s not a classroom with desks. It’s a round tower room with a fifteen-foot ceiling.
There is no furniture or whiteboards. Only apothecary-like cubbies covering the walls containing raw materials—stones and metals, rope and fabric—a myriad of everyday objects for us to transmute with our magic.
There are about ten students, including me and Grayson. But the only ones I recognize are Willow, the girl Grayson tripped in the hallway, and Adrien. He smiles and Grayson tenses next to me.
I immediately cross the room to join Adrien by the window.
“So, you’re in Alchemy, huh?” I ask with a lifted eyebrow. “I thought you’d be in fancy Gifted classes in the Chancellor’s Wing.”
Adrien laughs. “While I do pride myself on being fancy, it’s sort of a fifty-fifty deal between Guild classes and Gifted classes; we spend half the day in each. Long days, short nights, but worth it if it means we’re that much more prepared to fight the Lawless.”
“I respect that.”
He smiles at my praise. “Also, we get to choose our first focus subject … and I chose Alchemy. You’ll be seeing a lot of me this year, Eloise. If that’s okay with you?”
While I’m sure he chose Alchemy before he ever met me, it’s nice that he makes it sound like he’s glad he did. “Of course that’s okay. I’m happy you did.”
On the other side of the room, I’m pretty sure I hear Grayson groan.
“That was one hell of a fight today,” Adrien says, and whistles. “Pierce was a beast of an opponent. It was smart the way you fought him.”
I exhale. “I doubt Akari agrees with you.”
“What? Because of Grayson?” Adrien shakes his head. “That’s on him, not you. You shouldn’t have been punished for a decision he made.”
I meet his eyes, relieved he thinks so, hopeful other people do, too. But when I catch sight of Grayson across the room, his arms are crossed over his chest and his eyebrows are pushed together. He stares menacingly at Adrien.
Adrien lowers his voice. “Can I ask—what’s the deal with you two, anyway?”
I hesitate. “We’re roommates.”
“Just roommates?” he replies.
“Absolutely nothing more,” I say.
Adrien smiles. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
My cheeks heat, but I don’t get to respond before the door opens.
“Make way, Alchemy students!” an older woman announces dramatically as she enters.
“We have puzzles to solve and riddles to create.” She has curly gray hair that is only partially contained by a scrunchie on the top of her head.
“My name is Maria Martinez, but you can call me M. I’m the head of the Alchemy department.
You’re lucky to have me.” She laughs at her own joke and the students glance at each other.
But I like her immediately—she reminds me of my mom.
“I do love a room full of new faces,” she says. “Make no mistake, I plan on learning every one of them. And nothing’s better for that than an icebreaker. Any volunteers?”
Without hesitation, Adrien says, “I’ll go.”
M whips around to face us, her long skirt swishing around her ankles. “Ah, Adrien Aster, my Gifted student. While I do agree that you’d make a lovely guinea pig, I must decline. Instead, I think”—her eyes flit to me—“I’ll take you, Eloise.”
She knows my name.
It’s definitely not a coincidence that I’ve now been chosen first in not one, but two classes. Are they following the Chancellor’s orders? Or are they just curious, having heard rumors that I called the Key?
“Step into the center of the room, if you will. Everyone else, give her space.”
The students spread out along the rounded walls as I position myself in the middle. M’s hands make intricate movements in the air. As her fingers dance, a glass tube forms around me about five feet in diameter, stretching from the floor to the ceiling.
“You will notice,” M says. “There’s a glass bucket hanging from a glass hook on the ceiling above you filled with neon paint.” We all look up. “It’s swaying lightly now. But as the seconds pass, that motion will increase, until it tips and you become a living work of art.”
I chew on my cheek, and I swear Grayson notices even that small tick.
“Your job, Eloise, is to stop that from happening.” M pauses. “Using only the materials contained within the glass. No shields allowed.”
There are a couple of whispers around the room. It’s no easy task. She’s left me almost nothing to work with. Glass is a great medium if you’re trying to make something delicate and beautiful, but not if you’re trying to climb.
“Begin,” M says.
I immediately yank at the floorboards below me with my magic, pulling the wood up into a single rough stair. My brow furrows and I yank harder. One stair becomes two and then three as a bead of sweat drips down my temple.
I glance above me at the glass bucket, which is now visibly swaying. Crap. What has it been? A minute and a half? Wood is notoriously slow and stubborn and I’m now thinking there’s no way I’ll be able to shape it fast enough.
I have to change tactics. Problem is, there are no other materials. Wood and glass, that’s what she’s left me. I push against the glass with my magic to see if it’s fragile. But it doesn’t budge.
Fair enough. I walk up my three wooden steps and Alchemy a rock wall–style handhold above my head on the glass tube. I make another for my other hand and two for my feet. I test them out, and while they’re definitely slippery, they hold.
I glance up at the bucket and see its momentum is now in full swing. I have mere minutes before the paint starts slipping over the edge. I create another group of handholds as fast as I dare and climb the glass tube.
But I don’t make it four feet up before I hear a snapping noise, like ice before it breaks. And sure enough, a crack spiders out near my boot. Shit.
I let go of the wall immediately, dropping to the floor and landing in a crouch. Getting splattered with paint is one thing; breaking a fifteen-foot glass tube over my head is a whole other.
Still the bucket swings faster. Which is when panic starts to set in, this time with a healthy fear of embarrassment.
My magic isn’t strong enough to lift wood a measly ten feet into the air and grab that bucket.
I can’t climb the glass, and after what just happened in Akari’s training room, I refuse to fail in front of everyone, slimed by a bucket of paint like some kids’ YouTube video.
I take a breath. Think, damn it. This is a puzzles class. It’s meant to be tricky. Which is when it dawns on me—I’m trying to get to the bucket. But what if I tried to bring the bucket to me?
My head whips up and I examine the glass hook and bucket handle.
I could try to elongate them. But again, glass is brittle.
Wood would take too long and—I stop, looking down at my clothes.
At my boots and my shoelaces. At the metal grommets and the rubber of my soles.
M said I could only use what was in this glass tube.
I hadn’t even considered the things I brought in with me.
Then I laugh. Very much at myself.
I lift my hand in the air, gently and steadily pulling at the bucket with my magic until I seal the entire thing off with a glass lid.
Next, I turn my magic toward my clothes, creating as much extra fabric as I can between my hands.
It’s not pretty or made with finesse, basically just a big ugly pillow.
But when that sealed-off glass bucket falls, I’m ready for it.
I catch it with the fabric and place it harmlessly on the floor, not a drop of paint spilled or a piece of glass broken.
And despite my aching foot, I have the absolute biggest grin on my face. Because now I’m wondering if maybe I do have what it takes to be here. If I can figure out how to call the Key, maybe the Chancellor will let me stay.
“Bueno!” M says, clasping her hands together and disappearing the glass. “A creative solution, indeed! Eloise has taught us all a very important lesson here today. Does anyone know what it is?”
“That we have whatever materials are on our bodies as well as in any given room,” Adrien replies with confidence.
“While true, it’s not the whole of it,” M says.
“That time is always a factor,” a girl says. “That we have to choose our magic accordingly. Just because something could work, doesn’t mean we have enough time to pull it off.”
“Also true,” M replies, but continues to look around the room.
“More magic doesn’t always produce the best results,” Grayson says, and I turn to look at him.
“Fascinating response, Grayson Stone,” M says. “Do explain.”
“If Eloise had used brute force, she wouldn’t have succeeded. In fact, the more magic she used, the faster the bucket swung.”
“So, what would you conclude from this?” she asks, tapping her fingers on her chin.
“That being smart and determined is better than having the strongest magic,” and even though he’s looking at our professor, I can’t help but feel like he’s talking to me. And I have no idea what to make of that.