Jade
The next week passes in a blur of forced normalcy.
Everyone at Blaze Academy has apparently received the same memo: act like nothing happened. Don’t mention the missing professor. Don’t mention the missing third-year. Pretend the Council investigators are just particularly intense houseguests.
It’s working, mostly. We go to class. We eat in the dining hall. And if anyone notices the empty chair at the third-year table where Oliver used to sit, or Avery walking around like the living dead, or the tension that hums beneath every conversation, no one says anything about it.
Helen’s recording orbs drift through hallways and hover in corners.
Tobias Cane conducts his memory sessions in a classroom that’s normally empty.
Michael Aldridge has been spotted at the volcano’s base three times now, muttering about how the volume of overlapping magical signatures in the Scorched Circles makes his recreations a noisy mess.
The biggest change, however, is Evie.
She leaves for the library before I wake up and doesn’t return until I’ve left for my training sessions with Logan. The few times our paths do cross, she barely looks at me.
To make everything worse, the only person who might be able to help me make sense of this is a goddess who hasn’t spoken to me since she shoved lightning into my veins and dropped me off in a clearing to fight a six-headed monster.
Which is why, like every morning for the past week, I’m in the garden behind the Trinity Chamber at 6:00 AM.
Trees grow in spiral patterns around a stone circle, their branches intertwining overhead to create a natural canopy. Flowers line the pathways, their petals glistening with morning dew. Torches stand at the cardinal points, ready for ceremonies under the moonlight.
I settle onto my usual bench, the cold stone seeping through my training pants, and pull out the book I’ve been studying all week.
Divine Interference in Mortal Magic.
It’s the book Thaddeus gave to me weeks ago, back when I thought he was a helpful professor who wanted to see me succeed.
Now, this book is the only source of information I have about what T did to me. So, I flip to the section I’ve been studying most closely—the one Thad annotated in the margins.
It’s the myth of Selene and Ambrogio.
Before her eternal slumber with Endymion, the moon goddess Selene took a mortal lover named Ambrogio. Their passion was legendary, and marriage was promised.
But the gods, in their capriciousness, had other plans.
Apollo, jealous of Selene’s affection for the mortal, cursed Ambrogio to burn in sunlight forevermore.
His twin sister Artemis, seeking to aid Ambrogio, granted him extraordinary speed and strength in exchange for his soul.
And in a final cruel twist, Hades offered Ambrogio immortality with the caveat that Ambrogio would need to drink the blood of others to survive.
Thus, the first vampire was born. Not from choice, but from divine punishment. Not from darkness, but from love twisted beyond recognition.
Thad underlined those last two sentences three times. In the margin, he wrote: Gods don’t gift—they curse.
The words make my chest clench. Because he was giving me a warning.
I flip past illustrations of Selene in her celestial glory, and past descriptions of her four most powerful daughters—Luna, Sunneva, Celeste, and Tempest. Each goddess inherited a piece of their mother’s power.
Each was destined to choose a mortal champion to carry their light against the coming darkness.
Only when all four unite can the balance be restored.
The rest of the page is torn out. Of course it is. Why would anything in my life be straightforward?
But it’s another of Thad’s margin notes that haunts me most.
When gods choose champions, they choose instruments. Not partners. Not equals. WEAPONS.
I trace my finger over the final word, feeling the indentation where his pen pressed too hard.
Weapons.
Is that what I am? Did T choose me not because I’m special or worthy, but because she needed someone disposable to aim at her enemies?
I close the book and look up at the sky. It’s gray this morning, heavy with clouds that promise rain.
“Come on, T,” I say, even though I doubt she can hear me. “Tell me what you want from me. Tell me what I’m supposed to do.”
As always, there’s just the whisper of wind and the distant sound of the ocean against the cliffs.
Maybe she doesn’t care anymore. After all, she already made her weapon. Now she’s just waiting to see if it works.
I’m flipping to the next page when light flickers in the corner of my vision.
I freeze, every muscle in my body going rigid at the sight of a small golden orb hovering behind me.
Electricity crackles beneath my skin, but I clamp down on it before it can manifest into anything visible.
Breathe. You’re a normal witch reading a normal book in a magical garden at an abnormally early hour.
“I know you’re there.” I don’t turn around. “You might as well come out.”
For a long moment, nothing happens. Then I hear footsteps on the stone path, measured and unhurried, and Helen Finchman emerges from behind one of the trees like she was out for a casual morning stroll.
She’s dressed impeccably in a tailored coat, her bobbed hair is perfectly curled inward at the ends, and her warm brown eyes manage to look both friendly and calculating.
She touches a pearl on her necklace, extends a hand, and the recording orb floats back to her palm before disappearing into thin air.
“Jade Harrington.” She stops a few feet away from my bench, her gaze dropping to the book in my lap. “You’re up early.”
“I couldn’t sleep.” It’s not entirely a lie. Between training with Logan and the nightmares that wait whenever I close my eyes, sleep has become more of a theoretical concept than an actual practice.
Her eyes linger on the book.
“That’s Professor Morgrave’s handwriting in the margins.”
My heart slams against my ribs, but I keep my expression neutral. At least, I try to. I’ve never been great at hiding my emotions, which is probably why I’m constantly on the verge of accidentally electrocuting people.
“Is it?” I flip the book closed as casually as I can manage.
“Jade,” Helen says gently, although there’s steel beneath her tone. “Why do you have a book from the Ember Archives that’s been annotated by a missing professor?”
Because he gave it to me before he murdered my best friend’s brother and I helped turn his body to ash.
“He gave it to me a few weeks ago.” I clutch the book tighter, going for nervous student rather than guilty accomplice.
“Why?”
“Because I’m hopeless?” The self-deprecation comes naturally.
“I didn’t know anything about the supernatural world before I came here.
I showed up thinking Blaze Academy was a college I’d never heard of, then got attacked by a Hydra and found out magic is real before even setting foot into the academy. ”
Helen’s eyes soften. “That must have been overwhelming.”
“That’s one word for it.” I gesture at the book. “Thad—Professor Morgrave—noticed I was struggling. He said this might help me understand where my magic comes from. The history of it, or whatever. It’s all mythology and folklore, mostly. Old stories about gods and mortals.”
And storm goddesses who turn college students into walking lightning rods, but sure, let’s call it folklore.
Helen moves closer, settling onto the bench beside me with an elegance that makes me feel like a gremlin in comparison. “Did he say anything else when he gave it to you? Anything about his research or his Advanced Studies course?”
“He mentioned his course once or twice.” I shrug, aiming for vague and uninteresting. “I wasn’t really paying attention. I was too busy trying to figure out how to create flames without setting myself on fire.”
Helen studies me again, and I resist the urge to fidget with my bracelet, to look away, or any of the other thousand nervous tics that would mark me as suspicious.
“Professor Morgrave was known for his unconventional opinions.” She chooses her words carefully. “Did he ever share any of those with you?”
“No.” I force myself to meet her eyes. “Like I said, I’m barely keeping up with the basics. Philosophy and unconventional ideas are above my pay grade right now.”
She’s quiet for a moment, and when she speaks again, her tone has lost some of its investigative edge.
“Being thrown into this world with no preparation can’t be easy.” She folds her hands in her lap, her posture softening.
“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s been a lot.”
“I understand that it’s overwhelming. However, I’ll need to take the book,” she says, sharper again. “Given that it contains Professor Morgrave’s annotations, it may be relevant to our investigation.”
My fingers tighten on the leather cover.
But refusing to hand over the book would look suspicious. And looking suspicious would be more catastrophic than one of my lightning storms.
“Right.” I force my grip to loosen. “Of course.”
I hold the book out to her, and she takes it with a nod of acknowledgment.
Her thumb brushes the spine, and she opens it to the Ambrogio passage. Her eyes move over Thad’s markups, and her fingers go white-knuckled on the leather.
Then she closes it, tucks it under her arm, and smiles.
Great. Perfect. There goes my only link to understanding any of this.
She rises from the bench, turning to face me with her hands folded over the book.
“I have good news for you, Jade. I’ll be sharing it with the rest of the academy at breakfast, but given how close you and Oliver were...” She tilts her head, watching my reaction. “I thought you’d want to know first.”
“What about Oliver?” I ask, my voice thin.
“The Council has determined that Oliver Thorne and Professor Morgrave are not dead. They left the island together during the Halloween storm and are lost in the surrounding waters.”
I stare at her.
What?
“The seas around Blaze Academy are notoriously dangerous,” she continues, as if she’s reading from a prepared statement. “They have unpredictable currents, magical interferences, and creatures that don’t take kindly to trespassers. It explains why they’ve yet to return.”
I continue to stare at her, dumbfounded.
Does the Council actually believe this? Or is this the official story they decided to sell?
Either way, I have to nod along like this makes sense while knowing that the real story ends with two bodies turned to ash on a volcanic peak.
Bile rises in my throat, but I swallow it down.
“So they’re alive?”
“That’s our current assessment.” Helen’s eyes study my face. “Search parties are being organized, and we’re hopeful they’ll be found soon.”
I press my nails into my palms so electricity doesn’t force its way out.
“That’s...” I pause, contemplating how a normal person would react to this news. “That’s great. Really great. Evie will be so relieved.”
“I thought you’d be pleased.” She gives me a smile that I might have considered genuine if she wasn’t putting me so on edge. “I know how difficult this week has been for everyone.”
Questions crowd my throat.
How did you determine this? What evidence do you have? Why would Oliver leave with a professor without telling his sister and emberlinked partner?
But Helen turns and walks away before I can say another word, her heels clicking against the stone path.
I sit there for a long moment, alone in the garden, staring at the space where she stood.
The sky above me remains empty of any sign that T is listening, or watching, or that she cares at all about the mess she’s made of my life.
Eventually, I stand up and head to Phoenix Hall. Breakfast is starting soon, and I need to be there when Helen makes her announcement. I’ll have to watch Evie’s face when she hears the “good news.”
And I’ll have to sell the performance of my life: confused first-year, weak magic, and completely clueless about the truth.