Jade
The next week passes by in a blur of classes, studying, and training sessions with Logan.
Every night, I sneak out to meet him in the passages, and every night, we get a little closer to breaking down that invisible wall he’s constructed between us.
The way his hands linger when he corrects my stance.
The way he watches me when he thinks I’m not looking.
The way my name sounds different on his lips at two am when we’re exhausted and our defenses are down.
But we don’t talk about it. We just train and pretend the air between us isn’t charged with something other than my electricity.
Before long, it’s time for another round of Kieran’s twisted tournament.
“Winner: Nina Aldridge,” Kieran announces as Nina’s blade presses against my throat.
The Smoke Spire’s disorienting effects linger, even as we exit the circle.
My legs feel unsteady, like I’ve been spinning in circles for an hour, which honestly isn’t far from the truth.
The smoke in there is like being inside a giant lava lamp, if lava lamps were designed by sadists who wanted to watch you stumble around like a drunk toddler.
Then there’s the warm trickle of blood from where Nina’s blade caught my ribs during a particularly brutal exchange. But in better news, my knuckles are throbbing from the one solid punch I landed on her jaw.
Two healers wait just outside the circle. One immediately moves toward Nina while the other approaches me.
“Let’s have a look,” she says, already pulling aside my training gear to examine the cut. “Not too deep. Hold still.”
From a few feet away, Vera smirks at her spot near Garrett. “Told you Harrington wouldn’t last two minutes.”
“One minute forty-three seconds, actually,” Nina corrects, then winces as her healer prods her jaw. “And she landed a solid hit.”
I blink, surprised. Did Nina Aldridge just... defend me? To Vera?
The world must be ending. Or maybe Nina considers me a friend now?
“Thanks,” I tell her, and while Nina doesn’t give me an actual smile, there’s something in her expression that might be approval.
My healer frowns, leaning closer to examine my ribs. “Strange. This is already starting to close.”
My stomach drops. I was too focused on Nina and Vera that I forgot to tell my body to heal slower.
Think fast, Jade.
“That’s probably just the adrenaline making it look better than it is,” I say with a smile that’s definitely too big to be believable. “You know, endorphins and stuff.”
“Hmm.” She doesn’t look convinced—I don’t blame her, since I’m pretty sure that made absolutely no sense—but she continues her work.
As she does, I focus inward, connecting with the injury and commanding it to stop healing. Thankfully, it obliges enough to not cause any more suspicion.
“Next match,” Kieran calls out, saving me from further scrutiny. “Garrett Sinclair and Lauren Mitchell. Ember Ring.”
The crowd starts moving down the mountain, but Nina catches my arm. “Walk with me?” she asks.
There’s something in her tone that makes it clear this is happening whether I want it to or not. So, I follow her, trailing slightly behind the others.
Before long, we find ourselves on a small outcropping that offers a view of the Ember Ring below. It’s kind of pretty, if you ignore the fact that people are about to try to set each other on fire and cut each other with daggers down there for our educational enrichment.
We stand in silence for a moment, watching Garrett and Lauren take their positions. The morning sun warms the volcanic rock, and I can already see Garrett confidently adjusting his grip on his weapon.
“That was clever,” Nina says suddenly. “Sending your fire along those smoke currents to attack from three directions at once to disorient me.”
My stomach flips. Because that move was pure Logan.
The smoke has patterns, he said, pressing close behind me to guide my arms through the motion. Learn to read them, and you can make your opponent fight their own flames.
“Didn’t work though.” I shrug, hoping I sound casual.
“It almost did.” She touches her jaw gingerly. “If you hadn’t hesitated when the smoke thickened…”
“Hesitation is the story of my life in Kieran’s classes.”
“No.” Nina shakes her head slightly. “That’s not… I mean, you do hold back. But not from lack of skill.”
Below us, Kieran calls for the match to begin. Garrett immediately throws a wild fireball that Lauren easily sidesteps.
“Can I ask you something?” Nina’s voice is different now. Less analytical, more genuinely curious.
“Sure,” I say, bracing for anything between her trying to figure out who I’m hooking up with—which, right now, is frustratingly nobody—to asking me how I think I’ll fair in the Council’s basement while they do experiments on me to learn about my electricity.
“In the Spire, when we were both pushing through that thick smoke and we collided because we couldn’t see each other until the last second… you laughed,” she says instead.
I blink. That’s... not what I expected. But I remember it perfectly—the smoke so dense we were practically blind, both of us following our misfiring flames, completely disoriented, her elbow in my ribs, and the absurdity of two serious fighters reduced to a graceless heap in the oily mist.
“It was pretty ridiculous,” I say with a smile.
“It was.” A small smile tugs at her lips in return.
Holy shit, Nina Aldridge knows how to smile. Alert the media.
She quickly becomes serious again, and continues, “I was so focused on winning that I sent my flames spiraling through the smoke, but they curved back on an invisible current I didn’t see.
Then suddenly we’re both tangled up, trying to figure out which way is up, and you just… laughed. Like it was fun.”
“Wasn’t it? Just a little?”
She considers this, absently touching her bruised jaw. “I’m not used to that. Fun, I mean.” She says the word like it’s foreign. “Everything’s always about winning. About being the best. About gathering information to use to my advantage.”
That last bit makes me tense, but I try not to show it, deflecting instead. “Must be exhausting to be perfect all the time.”
“You have no idea.” The words slip out, and Nina looks surprised at herself.
“My parents wanted me to be a lawyer,” I offer, figuring if she’s being vulnerable, I can return the favor. Plus, it steers us away from topics like my midnight training sessions and secret magic. “Yale legacy, the whole thing.”
Nina turns from the match below to face me fully, and for once, she doesn’t look like she’s mentally taking notes. It seems like she wants to genuinely listen.
“Every moment was supposed to be building toward this perfect future they’d planned for me,” I continue.
“Mock trials in middle school. SAT prep starting freshman year. A private college counselor who basically wrote my application essays for me.” I laugh, but it comes out bitter.
“Then I got rejected from every school and ruined everything. Their perfect plan, their perfect daughter—gone. Shipped to some unknown college none of us had ever heard of that invited me to attend at the last minute.”
“You think Blaze Academy ruined things?”
“For them? Absolutely. Their daughter isn’t going to be the next generation of Harrington legal dynasty.
” I shrug. “For me? Jury’s still out. Some days I wake up here and think it’s the best thing that ever happened to me.
I mean, I can make fire with my mind. That’s pretty cool.
Other days...” I gesture at the fight taking place below.
“Other days I wonder if I’ve accidentally enrolled in some kind of supernatural Hunger Games. ”
“My mother would say Blaze Academy is just another tool for advancement,” Nina says quietly. “Another way to be better than everyone else. Another advantage to leverage in the family business.”
“What sort of family business?” I ask, even though Evie told me a bit about it after that encounter in Pyropsychology class.
Nina’s quiet for a moment, and I can practically see her weighing her words. “Information. We’ve been collecting and cataloguing information for generations.” She pauses. “My mother says knowledge is the only currency that matters.”
“So, you’re what—supernatural private investigators?”
“More like... archivists with a profitable side business.” Her tone turns slightly bitter. “My mother has contacts in every major coven, pack, clan, and court.”
“And she expects you to...?”
“Notice everything.” Nina’s fingers drum against the rock. “Every person I meet is supposed to be evaluated for their potential value. What they know, who they know, and what they might become.”
Notice everything.
My blood runs cold.
She knows. She has to know. This is where she tells me she’s been watching me, that she knows about the electricity, about Logan, about—
“And?” I try to keep my voice casual. “Have you been evaluating me?”
Maybe it’s too obvious of a question, but I have to know. I just have to.
Nina gives me a look that’s almost pitying. “What’s there to evaluate? You’re from a dead magical bloodline. Your magic is barely functional. Half the school is taking bets on whether you’ll make it through the semester or not.”
The dismissal stings, even though it’s exactly what I want her to think. “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“I’m not trying to be cruel. Just honest.” She shrugs. “My mother would say you’re not worth the ink it would take to write a report.”
“Then why are you telling me all this?”
Nina’s quiet for a long moment. “Maybe because you’re the first person who’s made me laugh during a fight.”
“To be fair, I was also pretty sure I was going to lose, so laughing seemed like a good alternative to crying,” I admit, giving her what I hope is a friendly smile.
She smiles back at that—again. “See? Most people would make excuses or insist they were strategic. You just... admit things.”
I almost laugh at the irony, but miraculously, I control my facial expressions. At least, I hope I do.
We watch Garrett finally yield to Lauren, his dramatic fighting style no match for her methodical approach, and I’m still trying to figure out Nina’s angle. Why tell me about her family? Why admit she’s supposed to be cataloguing everyone?
Unless she thinks she can relate to me about it? And that she’s making a friend?
Is she making a friend?
“You hate it,” I realize. “The family business. The watching and recording.”
Nina’s fingers still on the rock. “I’ve been taking notes since I could hold a pen,” she says quietly.
“Recording observations since I was five. My first report was about the neighborhood children—their magical potential, family connections, and useful traits.” Her voice turns bitter.
“My mother was so proud. She said I had the family eye. Like noticing which five-year-old might be worth befriending was some kind of gift.”
“I get it,” I say softly. “Every playdate of mine was a networking opportunity. My summer camps were chosen based on which hedge fund titan’s kids would be attending. I thought squash would be fun until I realized it was simply a way to network with the Greenwich crowd.”
“Squash?” She raises an eyebrow in surprise.
“I don’t want to talk about it.” I cross my arms and huff. “The point is, when you’re that young, you don’t know there are other options. Then, if you’re anything like me, you hit middle school and try to rebel.”
There’s no way Nina’s anything like me. She probably doesn’t even know how to spell the word rebel, and she’s the smartest in our class—even smarter than Evie.
“I tried that once. The whole rebellion thing.” Her voice goes quiet, and I press my lips together, surprised by this sudden admission of hers. “I was thirteen. I stopped taking notes for a week. Told my mother I wanted to be normal. That I wanted friends, not sources.”
“What happened?”
“She showed me the family ledgers. Every piece of information we’d sold.
Every alliance we’d brokered. Every disaster we’d helped people avoid because we knew things others didn’t.
Then she showed me what happened to families who didn’t have our protection, and I’ve been cataloguing ever since.
” Her grip on the rock tightens. “But when you laughed today, when we were tangled up and disoriented, I realized something. I didn’t want to catalogue it or write a report on it. I just wanted to... experience it.”
The crowd below starts moving—Garrett and Lauren’s match is over.
“We should head back before Kieran sends a search party,” I say, but I don’t move yet.
Nina tosses a stone over the edge. “Jade? What we just talked about, about my family…”
“Stays between us,” I finish. “I’m apparently not worth reporting on anyway, remember?”
Something flashes across her face—maybe gratitude, maybe relief. “Right. The dead bloodline girl with barely functional magic. Completely forgettable.”
“That’s me. Totally forgettable.”
She gives me a sharp look, then shakes her head. “Come on. If we miss the next match, Kieran will make us run laps. With weights. On fire.”
“Just another day at the Hunger Games Gladiator Supernatural Academy,” I say with a roll of my eyes.
And then, as if by some miracle, Nina actually laughs.