Chapter 5
THE (RELATIVELY) LEGENDARY DIVINER
CADENCE
“Oh, someone’s lovesick,” Viv said when I got into the galeria, barely looking up from where she sat cross-legged in the middle of a ritual circle on the floor, magic crackling around her, probably communing with some extraplanar intelligence I should have been scared of. “Don’t tell me about it.”
“We already know what it is,” Kali said, the tall and athletic one of the galeria, the one constantly approached by Witch’s Run teams but always turned them down because she had better things to do.
Which usually meant trying dangerous experimental magic.
She walked past me from the kitchen to the living area, carrying a mug of hot chocolate with a candy cane that stirred the drink itself.
She and Viv were both so much cuter than they let on.
“She’s got her Dragon House crush,” she said, sitting down on the couch next to Viv’s ritual circle, cracking open an old tome that looked like it shouldn’t have been used, sipping her hot chocolate before passing it to Viv, who paused her ritual long enough to drink from it too.
“I’m not lovesick,” I protested. I don’t think it came out too convincingly. “I’m just tired. Long day out in the Grounds and then a lot of studying.”
Kali spoke without looking up from her tome. “Long day out in the Grounds with your Dragon House crush.”
“No…” Oh, who was I kidding? I groaned. “I’m getting tea and going back to my dorm.”
It was already late by the time I’d gotten back from foraging with Summer, since I’d made sure to take the slower routes just to get a little extra time that I shouldn’t have been getting.
And what that meant in the end was that I was frazzled and my brain was cooked like a caustic potion, so when I got my nose in the books, I couldn’t focus on any of it.
By the time I got back to Scorpion House, set in the heart of the Citadel and under the shadow of Cloudless Tower and its ever-turning clock face, I’d barely had the energy to stumble inside and through the halls to get to the 313th Galeria.
Normally I’d have taken a cup of tea and some time reading on the veranda with Emberlight Garden rolling out beneath me alive with the sounds of the night, and maybe Rosie would join me to talk about her day or maybe Opal would sit there to talk about cool artifacts until they couldn’t sit still and would wander away just for a sec and forget to come back.
It was kind of our routine. But tonight, I just wanted a bed.
Which meant of course Rosie was in my room.
I jumped with a shriek when I opened the door to find her in there, and I nearly spilled my tea—Knot shot down off my arm and caught the teacup before it fell from the saucer, and I glowered at her. “Rosie? What are you—why are you here?”
She put her hands on her hips. “Because. I figured you were going to try to run away. But you can’t run from me. Tell me how your date went.”
I sighed, walking past her, and I set the tea down on the nightstand, dropping onto the side of the bed.
The window was open… she must have levitated in.
Telekinetics made for dangerous friends.
“It was a really beautiful experience,” I said.
“We rode in one of the old wyvern cars out to Glimmerdeep, I got to show her some of my herbalism spellwork, found the snapbush root she was after, and we sat by the lake to have lunch and talk about our Starfall lives. And about how her best friend was a diviner and had foreseen her meeting her true love on the last day of the semester, and her friend doesn’t like me because ha ha she thinks I’m into Summer, how silly a thought is that? ”
Rosie’s jaw dropped. “What kinda amateur second-rate diviner is that? This sounds like you and Summer are so good together.”
“I… I appreciate the vote of confidence. Even if Lumi were wrong about it, Summer believes in it, so she’s holding out for her true love.” I kicked at the floor. “I feel so stupid for being disappointed by it.”
“I’m devastated. You certainly have the right to be disappointed.
” She flicked her wrist, a shimmer of magic weaving around it and through her fingers, and the armchair moved out of the corner and turned to face me before she dropped down into it, leaning forward.
“Let’s look at it this way. You went and had some really special, meaningful time together, and you want to do it again.
The fact that you’re so disappointed by finding out about this withering vision of true love is a big sign she is good for you and you do want her. ”
“Well, I mean… I do like her,” I mumbled.
“She’s hard not to like. That’s part of the problem.
She’s cool and confident and everyone likes her.
I’m just… well, me. Just a quiet girl who hangs out in the gardens with my books.
I wouldn’t even have a chance with her normally!
Add in that she has this powerful diviner friend who’s foreseen a romantic encounter of true love… I’m a flicker against a dragon.”
“Okay, but you’ve gotten this destined true love thing going on. You made a wish on your skybloom thingy.”
“Skyblossom. And we don’t know that! It might have been a curse! I feel like this is a curse. I asked for true love and I get a girl who’s perfect and I get to watch her meet her true love. I shouldn’t have gone with purple.”
She grinned. “Look, fate’s just a suggestion anyway.
Sometimes you’ve gotta Shatter fate in the face.
Maybe Lumi’s vision was just from the wrong time.
I mean, c’mon. The girl was predicted to have a magical encounter of true love.
You had a magical encounter of true love with her.
That’s not something you see every day. Sounds like the vision was right on, just for the wrong day. ”
I hunched over my tea, sipping it slowly. “Even if that were true, I’m not going to tell her hey, I think I’m your destined true love, forget that vision and run away with me.”
“Sounds like a lack of commitment to me, Cades.”
“If that’s a lack of commitment, then call me flaky.”
She made a face, about to argue further, when there was a knock from the door, and I looked over at where—I didn’t even notice when it had opened, but Viv stood in the doorway, scowling at me. “You’re hopeless,” she said, and I gestured wildly.
“Why is everybody inviting themselves into my room? Also, I know. That’s why I wanted some time to process it alone.”
“Just tell her to practice with you.”
I blinked slowly. “Practice… what?”
“Dating, being together.” Viv shrugged, speaking curtly. “Her friend’s vision is probably fey tricks anyway. Then when nothing materializes on the last day of the semester, she realizes the actual true love has been by her side the whole time.”
“I thought you didn’t care.”
“I don’t,” she said shortly. “I’m going to sleep. Goodnight.”
“This doesn’t look like you don’t care,” I said, but that she didn’t care about—she shut the door on me mid-sentence, and I was about to complain about her when Rosie clapped her hands together.
“I think Viv’s right!” she said. “Having your all-or-nothing shot with the love of your life coming up must be stressful for Summer. She could use a little… rehearsal.” She winked.
“Oh, saints, Rosie,” I mumbled, putting my tea down and covering my face.
She was… I mean, Summer had said how nervous she was and about how she didn’t want to mess it up.
It was just… was I really supposed to suggest something like that?
I wasn’t nearly cool enough to say something like that.
“Look, I… I helped her get the ingredient she wanted. I don’t even have a good excuse to keep spending time with her. ”
“You can just ask because you like her! She’s allowed to say no if she doesn’t want to. But she’ll want to. You’re a real catch.”
“Eh… I’ve got the charm of a sewer ghoul.”
“You are not. Duel me right now and I’ll have you take it back.”
“I will pass. You, um, you’re sure you didn’t tell the others about—”
“About the skyblossom thing, no.” She paused. “About your cute little Dragon House crush, abso-fucking-lutely.”
“Yeah, I have noticed that… I’m going to bed now, okay? I need some time with my books to help me clear my head.”
But they didn’t, of course—not when I spent the whole time just thinking about Summer.
And there must have been a hypnomancer around here somewhere trying to make matters worse, because I dreamed of Summer all night.
Her face close to mine in the wyvern car, close enough I could count every individual streak of blue in her eyes…
I’d thought I could get away from everything, so the next morning, when I was up before the rest of the galeria even stirred, I slipped out and skipped the Great Hall for breakfast at a quiet café in Juniper Square district, peaceful and still in the mornings, dark greenery in among old and imposing stone architecture that looked like ancient magics with the way it was swathed in early-morning mist and pale dawn light.
But I only got a few bites into my oatmeal when the chair across from me pulled out, and I looked up with a start at where the tall, willowy figure of Lumi Silvervale stood over the seat. “Miss Cadence,” she said, pouting at me already, and I put a hand up.
“Ah, don’t sit there—”
“Hmph! You can’t hide from me and send me away, Cadence.” She dropped into the seat with the damaged leg, and it buckled, and she dropped so immediately it was almost comical, shrieking as she fell over backwards and landed on the floor.
“Lumi?” I stumbled out of my chair and knelt next to her, and she made a face at the chair, kicking it.
“Even the chair is out to get me.”
“I wasn’t saying you can’t sit, just… that chair is, kinda broken… are you okay?”
She looked away, pouting. “My butt hurts.”
“Okay, I mean, I can understand that. I have some herbological remedy…”
“For my butt?”